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Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 57(1), 2012, pp. 101-152

IMPACT OF ARABIC ON BENGALI LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Afia Dil*

Abstract

This paper is a sociolinguistic study of the impact of Arabic language on Bengali language and culture beginning from the earliest contact of the Arab traders by sea routes with the Chittagong bay area and inland areas like Sonargaon and Dhaka; the coming of Muslim saints from the 7th century onward and later as conquerors from Western and Central Asia. The essay covers: 1) Survey of historical contact of Arabic with Bengali with focus on influence of Muslim missionaries and sufis notably Shah Muhammad Sultan Rumi in Mymensingh (11th century), Shaikh Jalaluddin Tabrizi in Pandua (12th century), Shah Jalal in Sylhet (14th century); Muslim rule of the region (1204-1764); British rule (1764-1947); period of East Pakistan (1947-71); and, Bangladesh (since 1971); 2) Muslim Bengali literature beginning with Shah Muhammad Saghir (14th century), translation of Islamic and Perso-Arabic literature , emergence of Dobhashi literature and Baul poems of Lalon Shah and others; 3) Linguistic impact of Arabic language on the phonology, morphology, syntax and selected semantic domains of Bengali language; 4) Influence on Bengali life and culture in general; 5) Concluding remarks on current trends in the field.

Transliteration of Arabic and Bengali Phonemic Sounds I have chosen to use in this essay the standard English alphabet for the following phonemic consonants in Arabic and Bengali: b,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,m,n,p,q,r,s, t,w. For vowel sounds I have used: /i/ (bit), / ī / (beet), /ā / (father), /ɔ/ (ball), /e/ (bet), /æ/ (bat); /o/ (note), /u/ (pull), /ū/ (boot), au (now), /ɔi/ (boy); /ai/ (buy).

Arabic Consonant sounds: /ṭ/ (Arabic ṭakhṭmeaning seat), /ṯh/ (Arabic ṯhum meaning garlic), /ḥ/ (Arabic ḥalwa meaning sweetmeat), /ǩ/ (Arabic ǩaas meaning special); /ḍh/ (Arabic ḍhikr meaning recitation), /š/ (Arabic šiḍḍaṭmeaning trouble), /ṣ/ (Arabic saaf meaning clean), /đ/ (Arabic đaman meaning security), /ŧ/ (Arabic ŧalab meaning search/, / ẓ/ (Arabic ẓulm meaning cruelty), /’/ (Arabic ’ilm meaning knowledge), /ğ/ (Arabic ğareeb meaning

* Professor Emeritus, Alliant International University, San Diego, California, USA

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poor), /q/ (Arabic qabil meaning capable), /h/ Arabic hḍ meaning guidance in the right path). The first character of Arabic alphabet ء / / called Hamzah or Alif has the sound of the glottal stop which can occur initially, medially and finally.

Arabic Vowel sounds: Arabic has a simple vowel system with only three short vowels /i a u/ where /a/ corresponds more or less to /ə/ as in English “but” and three long vowels /ī ā ū/, where ā corresponds to English /æ/ as in “bat”. Bengali Consonant sounds: /chh/ as aspirated ch as in Bengali chhara (rhymes); /jh/ as aspirated j as in Bengali jhar (storm); /kh/ as aspirated k as in Bengali khal (canal); aspirated /gh/ as in Bengali ghar (house); dental /ṭ/ as in Bengali tui (you, intimate or junior); aspirated dental /ṭh/ as in Bengali thala (plate); dental /ḍ/ as in Bengali dana (grain); voiced aspirated alveolar /dh/ as in Dhaka; retroflex / ŗ / as in ghoŗa (horse).

Bengali Vowel sounds: /i e æ a ɔ o u/. Bengali does not make any distinction between long and short vowels, though the Bengali alphabet has two letters to show the difference in writing. All the Bengali vowels adjacent to a nasal consonant are nasalized, for example, chāñd (moon).

1. The Historical Contact of Bengali with Arabic

Bengali, one of the major Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia is estimated to be spoken by about 80 million people in the West Bengal province of India and about 150 million in Bangladesh. The language belongs to the Eastern branch of the Indo-European family of languages, and is closely related to Assamese, Uriya and Bihari, which were the Prakrit languages of the area, as well as Sanskrit, which was the classical language limited to the Brahman class. Other languages that have close affinities to Bengali are some non-Aryan languages like Kol and Munda.

The history of the Bengali language goes back to the eighth century A.D. and the earliest record of written Bengali known as “Old Bengali” is a collection of mystic songs called “Charyapadas”, composed by Buddhist mystics. The rulers of Bengal at that time were Pala kings, who were Buddhists with Pali as the language of their religion. They had substituted Pali for Sanskrit as the language of administration in the country. They were followed by Sena kings, who were

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Hindu Brahmans who again replaced Pali with Sanskrit. Bengali as a language had no prestige till the advent of the Muslim rulers who came there by the early thirteenth century.

The Middle Bengali period coincides roughly with the period of the Muslim rule in Bengal, which lasted from 1204 A.D. till its replacement by the British rule in 1764. Muslim rulers in Bengal were first Turks, then Afghans, and later the Mughals, but the language of administration had continued to be Persian all throughout. The language of religion of these rulers as well as the growing Muslim population of Bengal was Arabic, and the common everyday language was Bengali, for the Hindus, the Muslims and people of other religions.

The distinguished Islamic historian Syed Sulaiman Nadvi (1934) established that there were a number of Arab traders’ colonies in Southern India and the Chittagong coastal area going back to very early times. The rise of Islam in the 7th century A.D. and the unification of the Arab tribes under the banner of Islam under the centralized state at Medinah helped the Arabs to spread their influence to distant areas. Some of the routes from the Arabian ports to China passed through the Bay of Bengal that was known to the Arabs as Schelahath and Kalahabar. A number of Arab historians notably Abu Zaid Sirafi in the 9th century and Masudi in the early 10th century describe these sea routes. The first documentation by an Arab geographer-traveler who recorded his observations of what is Eastern Bengal was Sulaiman Tajir – a merchant who wrote in his book Silisilatul Tawarikh (The Sequence of History) in 851 A.D. Some scholars take the position that Sulaiman’s observations of the Mulkul Dharami (Kingdom of Dharmi or Dharma) after the name of the ruler of the Pala dynasty called Dhamma or Dharma was misheard or misread by him as Ruhmi (perhaps the Arab’s variation on Ramu – an area near Cox’s Bazar) is about a part of Eastern Bengal as he describes the elephants and muslin cloth which was a great specialty of the area, and the use of kaudis that was the coin in use at the time. The famous Arab historian Masudi (956 A.D.) mentioned the kingdom of “Rahma” (another variation of Ramu). Both Sulaiman and Masudi mention the inhabitants to be good looking. A number of future historians during the Mughal period especially noted the beauty and charm of the women of the region. One of the earliest authentic historian who wrote on the region because of his personal observation was not Al-Biruni (1048 A.D.) but Ibn Batuta who travelled to China and on the way stopped in Bengal (1345-46) and wrote: “…

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we spent forty-three nights at sea, arrived eventually at the end of Bangala. This is a vast country, abounding in rice and nowhere in the world I have seen any land where prices are lower than there. … The first city in Bengal that we entered was Sudkawan [he meant Chittagong], a large town on the coast of the great sea. Close by it the river Ganges, to which the Hindus go on pilgrimage, and the river Jun (he meant Jamuna) unite and discharge together in the sea.” He mentioned Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah as the ruler of the region. He also mentioned that he went from Sudkawan to Sylhet to meet the great Sufi Shah Jalal and returned to Chittagong by river via Sonargaon. It is important to note in this context that the Brahmaputra-Meghna passing through Bangladesh connected Sonargaon with the Bay of Bengal near Sandvip. It must be mentioned here that historically these areas of Bangladesh were very active since the early years of the Christian era and Buddhist missionaries like Atisa Dipankara travelled to China, Korea and Japan in the East and the port cities of Arabia in the West. The sea-raiders had made the Bengali textiles and woodwork very famous in many parts of the world including Europe even during the pre-Christian era. A number of books have described the rare beauty of Bengal muslin and silk cloth, for example, Chanakya’s Arthashastra (4th B.C.) and Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century A.D.) write of “muslin of the finest sorts” as a major export of Bengal. Sulaiman Tajir (9th century A.D.), mentioned above, wrote in his Arabic book that he had seen: “a stuff made in this country which is not to be found elsewhere; so fine and so delicate is this material that a dress made of it may be passed through a signet ring.”

1.1 The Muslim Saints

Muhammad Enamul Haq wrote in his history of Sufism in Bengal 1 that probably Sufism was introduced in Bengal in the 11th century with the arrival of Shah Muhammad Sultan Rumi who is reputed to have come to Mymensingh in 1053 A.D. His tomb is in Madanpur in Netrakona area of Mymensingh. His influence spread so fast that the Hindu ruler Koch became afraid of his growing power. In the words of Enamul Haq: “It is said that whoever came in contact with the saint, accepted Islam and became a devoted follower of the saint.” Baba Adam was the next major sufi who carried on the tradition. He is known to have been put to death by Raja Ballala Sena at Brikrampur, Dhaka, in 1119

1 Haq, Muhammad Enamul, A History of Sufi-ism in Bengal, Dhaka: Asiatic Society of

Bangladesh, 1975, pp. 144-45


A.D. After these two sufis the major name is that of Shaykh Jalaluddin Tabrizi (d. 1225 A.D.) who is compared in the context of the spread of Islam in the region to Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti (1142-1236) who spread Islam in northern India. Tabrizi arrived in Bengal around 1195 – a few years before the Turkish conquest of the region. In the words of Haq, “[He] died in Pandua (Gaur) in or about the year 1225 A.D. As he was a great propagandist, he converted a number of Hindus mostly belonging to lower classes (the fact can be known from the Sanskrit chronicle “Sekhsubhodaya”) to the Islamic faith before the coming of the Turks to Bengal.2 [This book was written in the 16th century] The last Hindu king of Bengal, Laksmana Sena whose reign came to an end around 1200, is said to have built for him a mosque and a khanqah or monastery at Pandua.” He acquired land to plant gardens and then dedicated the property to the local inhabitants for the benefit of thousands of travelers to the khanqah that became the major center of Sufism in the region. To quote Enamul Haq, “The Darvishes of this centre enhanced the prestige of the Muslims of Bengal, by their piety, education, culture and activities which attracted the attention of the people of Northern India to Bengal.”3 Tabrizi’s fame spread throughout northern India and he had disciples in Lucknow, Delhi and Gujrat. After the fall of the Sena kings a growing number of Muslim missionaries and sufis started arriving in Bengal. Tabrizi left a long line of sufis as his inheritors who carried on his mission. By the end of the 15th century Sufism in Bengal had gained so much importance that, according to Enamul Haq4 the “Banga Centre of Sufism” became very famous with its major centers at Dhaka, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Pabna, Bogra, Rajshahi, Faridpur and Bakherganj: “This seems to be the most ancient centre among all the Sufi centres of Bengal” that played a major role in the spread of Islam and Arabic language in the region from the 11th century onward.

The next very famous saint was Shah Jalal (d.1346) who came to Bengal followed by, according to one account, three hundred and twenty disciples. He was a major figure in the propagation of Islam in the Eastern part of Bengal and Western part of Assam. His tomb in Sylhet is a famous shrine visited by thousands of pilgrims every year. These are some examples that show the

2 Enamul Haq, 1975, p. 146 3 Ibid, 1975, p. 159 4 Ibid , 1975, p. 204ff

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growing influence of Islam in the area now comprising Bangladesh. These developments also played an important role in making the region become a major center of Muslim rule for several centuries. From the perspective of our study of the influence of Arabic language on Bengali it is important to note that a number of Islamic books from Arabic and Persian were translated into Bengali that brought in a large number of Arabic words into the language.

1.2 The Bauls Another notable point is the development of a special sect of mystics in Bengal called “Baul”. The fact that it developed from Islamic mystic tradition has been overlooked by many scholars and even the origin of the word “Baul” has ignored the possibility of what Enamul Haq5 has recorded: “The word ‘Aul’ is the Bengali contraction of the Perso-Arabic word ‘Awliya” (plural of Wali or a Muslim saint) meaning ‘the saints’. Accordingly, those people, who lead a saintly life, observe the formalities of Muslim saints in dress, practice and belief, are called the ‘Bauls’. … Bauls of Bengal form a great community, and people affiliated to it are found in almost all the districts of Bengal in one or other name.” The important point to note here is that nobody knows who founded this community. The Hindus believe that their Gurus (like Hari Guru, Banachari, Seva Kamalini and others) did so and the Muslims believe that Muslim Sufis called Faqirs (Khushi Biswas, Saheb Dhani, Lalon Shah and others) ) in the Nadiya region that was a famous cultural center of Bengal did so. As a mystic system it became very important in Bengal in the later part of the 16th century and in the 18th century it became very influential and a number of Akhras (their meeting places) spread in the region. They gained great popularity through their mystic songs that they sang to the accompaniment of Ektara or Dotara – single stringed or double-stringed lute. The Baul songs of Lalon Shah are especially very popular in Bangladesh. They have a number of Arabic words and Islamic ideas in them.

These settlers have left their permanent mark in the appearance and features of the inhabitants and the local dialect. The places named Alkaran, Sulekul Baher, Bakulia, Sarandi, etc., indicate the Arab influence. The use of negative before verb in the local dialect can also be traced to the same source.

In his Preface to the first-ever written Bengali dictionary, William Carey (1801) noted that while Bengali as a language is “derived from Sanskrit entirely, words

5 Enamul Haq, 1975, p. 297


of Arabic or Persian origin bear a small proportion to the whole”, and “most of those, the origin of which appears doubtful, may be generally traced to a Sanskrit or an Arabic origin.”

Besides being conquered and ruled by Muslim invaders, Bengalees came in contact with the Arabs and Arabic language in two other important ways. First, the Arab sea-traders entered Bengal through the eastern port of Chittagong and carried on business for a long time. Secondly, Arab saints and religious leaders had come to Bengal from the 8th century onwards and converted a large part of the indigenous population before the time of the invaders. Thus we find that the Bengalees had a three-way contact with the Arabs and Arabic language. Muhammad Enamul Haq has recorded: “From the 8th century A.D., the blood of a new race began to be mixed up with the Bengali blood: the people of the Semitic race began to enter Bengal from that date. The recent discovery of a coin of Caliph Harun-al-Rashid (786-809) in Paharpur, (Rajshahi), has established the fact that the Semitic Arabs were preaching their religion as well as carrying on business in this country; they had also established a small principality in Chittagong district under an Amir. Several saints, like Shah Sultan Ba Yazid Bistami (874 A.D.), Mir Sayyid Sultan Mahmud Mahi Sawar (1047 A.D.), Shah Muhammad Sultan Rumi (1053 A.D.), Baba Adam Shahid (1119 A.D.), and Shah Niamat Ullah Butshikhan, were preaching Islam in Bengal during the period of early Muslim settlement here.”6

There are records showing that along with the saints a large number of people who were friends and followers of the saints also came and settled in Bengal. Abdul Karim7 wrote: “A fresh wave of Muslim migration under the powerful Mughal subadar swelled the ranks of the Muslim population.”8 These Muslim migrants, referred to by Abdul Karim, were not limited to the Persian speakers. There was a sizable number of Arabic speakers as well, as attested by S. Murtaza Ali (1971), who in his Preface to Saints of East Pakistan (1971) wrote: “There are more Muslims in East Pakistan than in Arabia, Egypt and Iran.”

6 Haq, Muhammad Enamul, Muslim Bengali Literature. Karachi: Pakistan Publications,

1957, p. 5 7 Karim, Abdul, “Impact of Islam in East Pakistan,” In: S. Sajjad Husain, 1962, pp. 30-

54. 8 “Impact of Islam in East Pakistan” in East Pakistan: A Profile, edited by S. Sajjad

Husain (Dacca: Orient Longman Ltd.), 1962, p. 46.

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By the beginning of the twentieth century, about 55% of the people of Bengal were Muslims. The conversion to Islam had been a very important factor in the introduction of the Arabic language to the newly converted Muslims with the fervor of converts to the new religion. A study of the Bengali language by Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah, one of the foremost linguists of our time, has recorded that a total of about 5,000 words have been borrowed in Bengali from Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He was the first scholar in Asia to have earned his Ph.D. degree in Linguistics in 1928 from Sorbonne University in Paris. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the three-volume comprehensive dictionary of Bengali regional dialects and wrote in his introduction that “Bengali literature originated in East Bengal.” This is where the people of the region were in contact with several cultures of the world that later became an important part of the intercultural tradition inherited by Bangladesh.

1.3 Arabic Words in Bengali Muslims’ Everyday Speech A look at the borrowing pattern of Arabic into Bengali would tend to show that it was through religion that Arabic first became absorbed in the speech of the Bengali Muslims. But, because Islam is a religion which is not confined to the religious rites only, but is a way of life for its followers in everyday life, Arabic words are found to have penetrated most of the strata of the Muslim society in general and by contact with people of other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, they have been absorbed in the larger circle of all Bengali speakers.

From his birth to his death a Muslim child keeps hearing Arabic all the time in a manner which is more intimate than even Bengali, which is his first language. As soon as a Muslim child is born, a person in the family has to give the adhan (call for prayer) which the child hears first. It is also an announcement to the neighborhood that a child has been born in a Muslim family. Then the child is given an Arabic name. Boys are given Arabic names like Bashir, Khurshid, Maqbul, Musharraf, Shuja, and girls names like Ayesha, Kulthum, Latifa, Maliha, Zubaida. Some of the familiar contractions of these names in Bengali are: Pir Bakhsh to Piru, Idris to Idu, Wilayat to Belu.

As the child grows up and is enculturated in the social and religious ways he is taught to say his greetings in Arabic and also reply to such greetings in Arabic. He is taught to say his prayers in Arabic, go to the mosque and read the holy Qur’an in Arabic. If the child is a girl, she is not required to go to the mosque, but is required to read the Qur’an in Arabic. When the child is four years and


four months old, the first letter that he/she is taught to read and write is the Arabic letter alif for Allah. After his/her formal education starts, the child is taught to read the life of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs of Islam, a brief history of Islam, and some stories of religious importance. The marriage ceremonies for both young men and women include the recital of Arabic verses, and the festivals (religious or others) are celebrated with prayers read in Arabic. When a person dies, the last words that his/her relatives and friends say in his/her ears are in Arabic, the kalima (words of faith), the dead body is given a gusl (bath) with Arabic verses recited at the time, and the last rites are performed in Arabic. In between, in everyday life, a Muslim in his conversations uses a number of Arabic words which are a part of his culture.

Bangladesh is one of the countries with the largest Muslim population. It has the largest number of mosques as compared with other Muslim nations where Arabic and Bengali are used interchangeably in sermons showing a large number of Arabic words in the Benglicized versions.

1.4 Muslim Bengali Literature There is a considerable body of Muslim Bengali literature. The first Muslim Bengali poet was Shah Muhammad Saghir, who was an employee of Sultan Ghyasuddin Azam Shah (1389-1409). He composed a long narrative poem Yusuf Zuleikha based on the Qura’nic story of Prophet Joseph and Zuleikha. Interestingly, the name he gave to the merchant who bought Joseph is Maniru which is a Bengali name and the coin he used for the purchase is Dhepua a Bengali coin. He adapted the Arabic story into Bengali by marrying the younger brother of Joseph named IbnYamin (Benjamin) to Bidhuprava, the daughter of the King of Madhupur in Bengal.

Another major figure of the time who popularized Islamic and Arabic literature and language was Jadu, the son of Raja Ganesh of North Bengal. Jadu embraced Islam under the influence of the Pandua mystics and ruled Bengal (1413-31) as King Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah followed by his son Shamsuddin who ruled from 1431 to 1442. This began the revolutionary period in Bengali language and literature. In the words of Enamul Haq,9 “These twenty-eight years (1414-1442) of this dynasty have a special niche in the history of Bengali literature for the revolution that took place … Bengali literature and the Bengali language had gained recognition in the court earlier, but they now enjoyed direct royal 9 Enamul Haq, 1957, pp. 35, 40

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patronage as well as gained public recognition. … The public recognition of the Bengali language and literature had widespread consequences. … It may be mentioned here that at the beginning of the 19th century a group of Bengali writers began using Arabic script for religious books in Bengali. Muhammad Jan, who was a poet of this period, wrote his famous book Namaj Mahatmya in Arabic script in 1852. … [I]t is a well-known fact that the manuscript of Alaol’s Padmavati which is in the Arabic script is about one hundred and fifty years old.” In addition to this Alaol contributed to the emergence of a new type of Bengali literature combining the Muslim and Hindu traditions in his Pada songs and his Islamic religious book Tahfa. It must be noted here that the 16th and 17th centuries were especially marked by synthesizing the Muslim and Hindu cultures in Bengali language especially notable in the tales of Satyapir and in Padavali songs.

Enamul Haq had noted some influence of Islamic subjects and Arabic language in a song in Sekh Shubhodaya (13th century) with reference to the miracles of Shaykh Jalaluddin Tabrizi with some elements of the Arabic language and proper names. During the Turkish rule poets like Shah Muhammad Saghir started composing Bengali literature using the mixture of the local and foreign languages and it has been called a revolutionary period in the history of Bengali language, literature and culture especially during the forty-five years of Hussain Shah as the king of Gauda (1493-1538). A number of Islamic works were made the subject of Bengali poems, notably Shab-e-Meraj (The ascension of Prophet Muhammad) composed in 1586 by Sayyid Sultan of Chittagong (c.1550-1648) as well as Rasul Vijay (The Victory of the Prophet) and his Marfati Gaan (Mystic Songs). His unfinished Rasuler Ofaat (The Death of Prophet Muhammad) was completed by Muhammad Khan (1580-1650) as well as his own Kiyamat Namah (The Last Day of Judgment). The greatest poet of the period was Alaol (1627-1680) of Chittagong. During the Mughal period a number of Muslim literary and religious works were composed in Bengali. For example, Yusuf Zuleikha by Abdul Hakim as well as by Garibullah and Karbala (on martyrdom of Imam Husain) by Abdul Hakim. There is a large body of Islamic literature in Bengali that has greatly enriched Bengali language and culture during the past two hundred years. During the Mughal period, a number of literary works were produced in Bengali covering Islamic themes incorporating Arabic words. During the British period writers like Mir Musharraf Husain (1847-1911) who wrote on


Meraj Sharif (Prophet Muhammad’s ascension), and on the lives of Hazrat Umar, Hazrat Bilal, Hazrat Amir Hamza are especially noteworthy in continuing this tradition. Shaikh Abdur Rahim (1859-1931) wrote an important biography of Prophet Muhammad. Qazi Nazrul Islam wrote a number of Islamic poems and songs and used beautiful Arabic words to make them authentic. Among his most famous poems in this context are “Fateha Doazdahum”, “Muharram”, “Khalid”, “Qurbani” and Hamd (poems in praise of Allah), and Na’at (poems in praise of Prophet Muhammad). He translated passages from the Qur’an in his Ampara. Kavi Gholam Mustafa also translated parts of the Qur’an and wrote essays on Islamic subjects using Arabic words. A number of poems of Farrukh Ahmad are also a landmark in this tradition. In the words of Syed Ali Ashraf,10 “The cultural panorama of Muslim Bengal from 1857 to 1947 indicate several curious but significant features. The first important feature was the expanded nature of the cultural content. Bengali Muslims were thinking not in terms of regional cultural variety but in terms of Muslim culture, and more particularly the history and culture of the Muslims of India. The revivalist and reformist movement reasserted this trend and made regional thinking rather narrow, limited and unwise. This broadening of outlook can be seen at all levels. … Writers were looking to the origin and past glory and tragedy of the Muslims. … A similar non-regional and all-pervasive revivalist attitude is evident in the translations of the Qur’an, Sadi’s Gulistan and Bostan, … the biographies of the Prophet … At the intellectual and political level we see how Nawab Abdul Latif and Syed Ameer Ali worked for the Muslims … and how the Muslim League came into existence as a result of the Educational Conference held at Dacca in 1906. … It was after 1947 that among those educated according to the modern education system prevalent in this country a great search for the identity of Bengali Muslims started.” After 1947 a number of the East Bengal writers actively started evolving a new identity that led to the separation from Pakistan in 1971 and a more determined outlook to carve out their identity as the free citizens of the new nation-state of Bangladesh. This brief historical background has been provided to show that our subject covers several centuries of work requiring extensive research on the subject.

10 Ashraf, Syed Ali, Muslim Traditions in Bengali Literatur, Dhaka: Islamic Foundation

Bangladesh, 1960, 1983, pp. 26-28

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1.5 Dobhashi Language and Literature

One more area that deserves to be highlighted here is what is known as “Dobhashi language and literature”. The best work on the subject has been done by Qazi Abdul Mannan11 in his The Emergence and Development of Dobhasi Literature in Bengal up to 1855. It was the author’s Ph.D. dissertation at the University of London. His survey of the Middle Bengali literary works shows, in his words, that “the influence of Arabic and specially of Persian literature on the writers was considerable. Many of the works of Muslim writers during the Medieval period were either translations or adaptations from Arabic or Persian works.” But he noted that one would expect the languages used to reveal the indebtedness to the languages of the originals but it is not so because they used “the traditional literary language of Bengal.” In fact, at times it is difficult to know whether the author of a particular work is a Hindu or a Muslim. However, to quote Mannan: “[T]he first work which has preserved evidence of the influence of the language of the Muslim rulers is the Manasavijaya by Biprardas Piplai,12 which is generally accepted as belonging to the end of the 15th century.” Piplai was a prominent Hindu writer of the time. Mannan quotes some lines showing the type of language he used:

Kaaji majlis kaari Kitab Koran dhari … (The Qazi declares the court open Taking up the Qur’an the sacred book …)

Of the forty words in the lines selected Mannan shows that twenty are of Perso-Arabic origin – all nouns. One word is a mixed word Khatagula – the first part is a Persian word Khata (crime) and second gula is Bengali plural suffix. The second borrowed word sir (head) is inflected with the Bengali locative case inflection e. He also quotes from Chandimangal composed in 1589 by a Brahman poet of Burdwan in his description of Muslims in the kingdom of Kalaketu where out of 68 words 20 are of Perso-Arabic origin – all of them nouns except one danishbanda which is an adjective used as a noun. Mannan is not quite right because the original in Persian is also used as a noun. There is one hybrid word Hasanhaati – Hasan is the proper name of a Muslim man and

11 Mannan, Qazi Abdul, The Emergence and Development of Dobhasi Literature in

Bengal upto 1855, Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1966. 12 Biprardas Piplai, 1966, p. 50


haati is a Bengali word meaning marketplace. In addition, a number of loanwords have Bengali case inflections, for example, khairate, pirer, and so on. From a 17th century poem “Satyapirer pacali” by the Hindu poet Dvija Giridhar of Burdwan where in the quoted six lines, out of 39 words 24 are of Perso-Arabic or non-Bengali origin, for example, duniya (world) and baat (Hindustani). To quote Mannan,13 “An innovation in Dobhasi can be found in this passage: verbal and pronominal forms of Hindustani origin are used side by side with verbs and pronouns of Bengali origin.” It is important because the Muslim saints picked up this Dobhasi and used it in their works for the promotion of their mission among the people of Bengal. The first major Muslim poet to use Dobhasi in all his works was Fakir Garibullah. According to Muhammad Shahidullah, Garibullah’s Yusuf Zuleikha was composed sometime after 1765. Syed Hamza was the next Muslim poet to use Dobhasi in all his works.

The first scholar to bring to public attention the Dobhasi language and literature was the British scholar Rev. J. Long in his A Descriptive Catalogue of Bengali Works (1855). He called it “Musalman Bengali Literature”. W.W. Hunter14 in his famous book Indian Musalman wrote, “So firmly did Islam take hold of lower Bengal, that it has developed a religious literature and a popular dialect of its own.” Mannan refers to the collected works of Dobhasi literature identified by Abdul Ghafur Siddiqi (1916) that out of his estimated 8,325 works in Dobhasi diction 4,446 works were still available and in use. In Mannan’s words,15 “[H]e accused the Hindu scholars of eradicating Arabic, Persian and Urdu vocabulary elements, from the Bengali language, and substituting difficult Sanskrit words in their place.” Another notable work is Ahsan Ullah’s Banga Bhasa O Musalman Sahitya 16 where he pointed out the large number of Musalman puthis published by the Battala Press in the 18th century notably Amir Hamza, Laila Majnu, Yusuf Zuleikha that were “neglected by the Hindu community because the language in which they were written was hardly

13 Mannan, Qazi Abdul, The Emergence and Development of Dobhasi Literature in

Bengal upto 1855, Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1966, p. 53 14 Hunter, William W, The Indian Musalmans, London: Trubner and Company.

[Reprint: Lahore: Premier Book House, 1964.], Calcutta, 1871, p. 152 15 Mannan,1966, p. 148 16 Mannan, Calcutta, 1918, p. 3

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influenced by Sanskrit.”17 Mannan also records the influential monthly journal Islam Darsan edited by Muhammad Abdul Hakim who published a detailed article “Banga Sahitye Musalman” on the contributions of the Muslims to the development of Bengali language in 1921. In the section entitled “Islami Bangla ba Puthi-Sahitya” he wrote that Islami Bangla was used by the Muslim writers “as a rival language to the Sanskritized language of the Hindu pundits who flourished before the establishment of the present day ‘lucid’ style by the persistent efforts of Vidyasagar” and others. He called the Dobhasi literature “the national literature of the Muslims of Bengal” and condemned those Hindu writers who excluded Perso-Arabic words and replaced them with unfamiliar and difficult Sanskrit words and terms. Mannan quoted the famous Hindu scholar Dinesh Chandra Sen 18 who “supported the use of Perso-Arabic vocabulary elements on many occasions and strongly condemned the Hindu writers who avoided them as an orthodox Brahman avoids the touch of a Muhammadan.”

Suniti Kumar Chatterji wrote in Volume One of The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, 19 “[In] Musalmani Bengali a considerable literature consisting of adoptions of Muslim and Persian stories and romances and religious works and tracts has grown up. … ‘The Musalmani Bengali’ employed in these works, however, is often too much Persianized; but the metres are Bengali, and a large percentage of Sanskrit words are retained, cheek by jowl, with the Perso-Arabic importations. … It is the Maulavi’s reply to the Pandit’s sadhubhasa of the early and middle part of the 19th century. The percentage of Persian words [he meant Perso-Arabic words] in a typical ‘Musalmani Bengali’ work … is about 31.74. … Books in ‘Musalmani Bengali’ begin from the right side, following the way of an Arabic or Persian book,

17 Towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th began the

translation of ‘Islamic literature’ for making known the ancient cultural heritage of the Muslims all the world over to the Bengali Muslims. It was a Hindu scholar, Bhai Girish Chandra Sen who made the first complete Bengali translation of The Qur’an in 1886. He also translated half of Mishkat Sharif. Later, Mirza Mohammad Yusuf Ali translated Kimiya-e Saadat in full and published it in five volumes.

18 Sen, Dinesh Chandra, Eastern Bengal Ballads, I, Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, Vol. XIII, 1923.

19 Chatterji, Suniti Kumar, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, Vols. 1 & 2, First published by University of Calcutta Press, Calcutta, 1926, pp. 210-11; Published by London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970.


although the alphabet is Bengali.” Sukumar Sen20 in his Islami Bangla Sahitya wrote, “Some of the Perso-Arabic words they used were well-known only to the Muslim population and others were the common property of the work-a-day language of both Hindus and Muslims.” He wrote in his History of Bengali Literature (1960: 158): “The early nineteenth century Muslim writers … their language was so much saturated with Perso-Arabic and Hindi[and Urdu] words that it was often unintelligible to persons not acquainted with those tongues. The jargon was known as Muslim Bengali.”

Muhammad Abdul Hai and Syed Ali Ahsan21 in their Bangla Sahityer Itivratta wrote, “We have named this literature Dobhasi puthi because in it Perso-Arabic words were used in large numbers along with Bengali. … The use of Perso-Arabic words in Bengali is not new in Bengali poems. Throughout the Middle Bengali literature Perso-Arabic words were used to create particular situation or to make the society, customs or behavior of Muslims lively.” Mannan added that these comments are brief and very general and no attempt was made to analyze the language: “No critic has made a detailed examination of the Dobhasi texts or constructed the history of the literature in that diction.” He states that he made the effort in his chapters IX-XIII.22 From our perspective in this essay the following points of Mannan deserve to be quoted to conclude this section: “The word, Dobhasi, obviously means derived from two languages, and is, therefore, an oversimplification, as the language contains elements from more than two languages, namely, Bengali, Arabic, Persian and Hindustani. Nevertheless, it has a logical justification. The three languages, Arabic, Persian and Hindustani [Urdu] all came into Bengal as part of Muslim culture, and can, therefore, be regarded as forming one group, bound together by certain characteristics which differentiate them from the indigenous language, Bengali, with which they became mixed. The term therefore, can be interpreted as meaning Bengali and Islamic, if that word may be coined to cover the group of languages which came into Bengal with Islamic culture. 23 … [Rev.] Long maintained that the Muslims of Bengal created a mixed diction as ‘a kind of lingua franca’, because as he says, they were ‘averse to learning the

20 Sukumar Sen, 1951, p. 183 21 Ahsan, Syed Ali & Muhammad Abdul Hai, Bangla Sahityer Itibritta, (Bengali:

History of Bengali Literature). Dhaka: Student Ways, 1956, pp. 20, 22-23 22 Ahsan, Syed Ali & Muhammad Abdul Hai, 1956, pp. 156-219 23 Ahsan, Syed Ali & Muhammad Abdul Hai, 1956, p.158

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vernaculars.’ He pointed out also that the Muslims … were inclined to resist ‘foreign influence’ by which he seems to have meant the influence of English.24 … [N]one of these critics mentions the fact that the Dobhasi diction was first used by Hindu poets in the 15th century and more widely in the 16th and 17th centuries; and that during this period Muslim poets employed only the standard Bengali of the time.25 … It may also be observed that some Muslim poets continued to write on imported themes in the standard language during the 18th and 19th centuries after Dobhasi literature had begun to flourish.26 … [William] Carey comments on this subject in the following words though he is referring more specifically to the spoken language: ‘Multitudes of words, originally Persian or Arabic, are constantly employed in common conversation, which perhaps ought to be considered as enriching rather than corrupting the language.’ 27 … The impression that Perso-Arabic elements in the Bengali vocabulary actually debased the language has continued into this century. Even so distinguished a scholar as S.K. De has had a hand in continuing it.” In fact, the matter of the origin and development of Dobhasi has to be studied against the background of the history of Bengal as outlined above. It was the advent of the Muslims in the region that began this process.

1.6 Arabic Loanwords in Bengali

The subject of Arabic loanwords in Bengali deserves to be approached in this larger framework of the cultural history of the region. One of the most comprehensive studies of Arabic loanwords in Bengali from this perspective is to be found in Shaikh Ghulam Maqsud Hilali’s Perso-Arabic Elements in Bengali (1967) which in the words of Muhammad Enamul Haq 28 is a lexicographical work in Bengali that “in the realm of its vocabulary, it built up over its main Prakrit structure, a fine super-structure with word-elements borrowed from a number of languages including Persian, and (mainly through Persian) Arabic, with which it was historically destined to come in contact.” In Enamul Haq’s words, “[Hilali’s book] aims at giving a lexical account of those Perso-Arabic words which were used freely in Bengali literature by the Hindus

24 Ibid, 1956, p.159 25 Ibid, 1956, p.160 26 Ibid, 1956, p.161 27 Carey, William, A Grammar of the Bengali Language, Serampore, Bengal: Mission

Press, 1801, p. iii. 28 Enamul Haq, 1967, p. iii


and Muslims alike during the British period. Going through the normal philological process of changes in words taken as loan from a foreign language, Perso-Arabic words in Bengali lost more or less their own phonology to adapt themselves to the phonology of the language, they enriched. In some cases, original meanings of these words were changed altogether; in most of the cases however, they were modified or extended; and in a number of cases, they were retained intact. In the domain of philology, this kind of changes in loan-words is known as ‘Process of Naturalization’ and it was very fully active in Bengali in the beginning of its formative period.” The book was published posthumously with Enamul Haq as the Editor who calls it “the first work of its kind in Bengali” and adds that such loanwords and expressions “are often found with bewildering spellings in Bengali, starting from a name or a title of a person to very common words of daily use. … Therefore, some of these words and expressions were metamorphosed into Bengali forms almost beyond recognition in respect of phonology and spelling, while others were changed or modified partially. In the wake of orthographic changes of these words and expressions, ‘Semantic Changes’ also came.” And he adds that in order to determine their forms, origins and connotations they were noted more than once in appropriate places in the book. The titles of the Bengali and English books consulted for compiling the list is provided in the book. It must be said that in spite of its limitations the work covering 304 pages is useful for future researchers on the subject. It provides the origin of these borrowed words written in Bengali script and their meaning(s) in English, for example, keccha (Arabic qissa) story, tale, legend; and Ajib (Arabic Ajib) wonderful, curious.

Munier Chowdhury’s landmark article on “The Language Problem of East Pakistan” (1960) shows the influence of Arabic language in the use of [s] and [š] and [j] and [z] as variants in the speech of Muslim speakers. He also noted the difference between the Hindu and Muslim speech in the context of [s] and [z] sounds. To quote Munier Chowdhury, “One definite feature of ‘Muslim phonology’ is the fact that many Muslim speakers of SCB [Standard Colloquial Bengali] seem to make consistent distinctions between s and š and between z and j. It is difficult to find absolute minimal pairs but these four sound types in the speech of such Muslims cannot be accepted as contextual variants of two phonemes. In this kind of SCB [s] and [z] occur intervocalically and initially before a vowel. Frequently occurring examples include asia, samad, zaman, azad, aziz. All these words the vast majority of Hindus would pronounce with

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[š] and [j]; we may therefore include these two as phonemes /s z/ of SCB as spoken by the average educated Muslim Bengali.”29 Munier Chowdhury also observed in this essay that Bengali in East Bengal has “a large variety of dialects, some of them even mutually unintelligible. In the very near future a new standard colloquial language with a special prestige value may pattern out a blend of these dialects. … A sense of release from constraining obligations in verbal behavior is noticeable everywhere. Intellectuals are found engaged in discussing economics, philosophy, art, politics all in a language not definitely the same old SCB. … All these portend to one thing: the Dacca-Mymensing group of dialects may play the major role in moulding the Standard Colloquial.”30 It is in this context of the emerging Standard Bengali that the study of the Islamic tradition in the development of Bengali language is very important today in Bangladesh because of its special relations with the Muslim nations especially Saudi Arabia.

Munier Chowdhury (1970) has provided some important insights into the subject with his critical review of the Muslim authors and the speech forms of Bengali in East Pakistan developments from 1947 to 1969 – just about the beginning of Bangladesh. His discussion of the Perso-Arabic words point them out serving as a linking thread running through all the dialects across their geographical spread. He provides a large number of such words used by the authors in the illustrative texts which show, for example, that out of the fifty words under the letter /m/ thirty-six are of Perso-Arabic origin used by any Muslim author across the dialectal variations.31 Chowdhury wrote that this was not new because the first Bengali author who used such words was Ram Ram Basu followed by Tek Chand Thakur and Vidyasagar took it to higher levels. This trend was followed by a number of later writers. Abul Mansoor Ahmed’s book Ayna and Habibullah Bahar’s newspaper column called Hing o Halim are notable examples of this usage. Muslim Bengali writers used this style ten years before the creation of Pakistan and five years after that. Among the East

29 Chowdhury, Munier, “The Language Problem in east Pakistan,” In: Linguistic

Diversity in South Asia: Studies in Regional, Social, and Functional Variation, Charles A. Ferguson and John J. Gumperz (ed.), Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1960, pp. 64-80.

30 Chowdhur, pp. 64-65, 75, 76 31 Chowdhury, Munier, Bangla Gadyareeti (Bengali: Bengali Prose Style), Dhaka:

Central Board for Development of Bengali, 1970, pp. 51-101


Pakistani writers the one who used Perso-Arabic words with great skill was Shaukat Osman. Chowdhury has given a list of such words and phrases for example, kabira (Major), kabil (capable), kamal (perfect), ibnul wakt (opportunist, timeserver), hayat maut (life and death). 32 Chowdhury’s list covered Arabic loanwords used mostly in the speech of the common people and in the works of writers like Abu Rushd, Abul Mansoor Ahmed, Ibrahim Khan, Shahed Ali, Alauddin Al-Azad, Shamsuddin Abul Kalam, Syed Waliullah, Shaukat Osman, Sanaul Haq, Hasan Azizul Haq, and Shahidullah Qaiser.

Afia Dil completed her Ph.D. degree in linguistics at Stanford University in 1972 with her dissertation entitled “The Hindu and Muslim Dialects of Bengali”33 in which she mentioned that in some ways the Hindu and Muslim dialects of Bengali are similar to the use of Hindi and Urdu dialects of the common lingua franca called Hindustani with one difference that while Hindi spoken by the Hindus was written in the Devanagari script and Urdu spoken by the Muslims was written in the Perso-Arabic script, the differences between the Hindu and Muslim dialects of Bengali did not crystallize in a visible manner because they used the same Bengali script. Only a few Bengali Muslims wrote their Bengali works mainly in the Chittagong area in Perso-Arabic script but this was not taken up by the Muslims of other parts of Bengal.34 However, she pointed out: “The Hindu/Muslim dialects of Bengali do not show regional origin like the Baghdad communal dialects.35 Bengali communal differences in dialects is more like the Jewish-Muslim differences in Tunisian Arabic, but with the roles reversed, i.e., the Muslim dialect of Bengali has some of the minority characteristics (including influence of a pervasive religious classical language) of the Jewish dialect in Tunis. … The social isolation of this new Muslim community … helped in keeping the dialects distinct. … [Later] the prestige and power of the Muslim ruling class resulted in the acceptance of many Perso-Arabic words in the common core of the language and created a certain

32 Munier Chowdhury, pp. 51-101 33 In 1991 a slightly revised version of the dissertation was published under the title of

Two Traditions of Bengali Language (Cambridge, UK: Islamic Academy, 1991; and, Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1993.)

34 Dil, Afia, The Hindu and Muslim Dialects of Bengali, Stanford University, 1972. [Two Traditions of the Bengali Language, Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Academy, 1991, pp. 46-47; Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1993.]

35 Haim Blanc, Communal Dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1964.

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pride in the Muslims at having a new linguistic distinctiveness to reflect their new identity.”

The main differences between the Hindu and Muslim varieties of Bengali in Afia Dil’s words are:

The differences between Hindu and Muslim dialects seem to be most striking in the lexical items. There are also some phonological characteristics that differ. In the realm of morphology and syntax the difference seems to be minimal.

a) Features of phonology: The phonological difference between the Hindu and Muslim dialects can be noted in the presence of two extra phonemes /s/ and /z/ as separate phonemes: /s/ occurs only in clusters before certain dentals initially and 3 In 1991 a slightly revised version of the dissertation was published under the title of Two Traditions of Bengali Language (Cambridge, UK: Islamic Academy, 1991; and, Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1993.) Haim Blanc. 1964. Communal Dialects in Baghdad. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. medially. Similarly /z/ is not a separate phoneme in Hindu Bengali; it occurs only as a phonetic variant of /j/ in some cases. But Muslims have both /s/ and /z/ with the status of separate phonemes. For example, /sālun/ “curry”, /sirkā/ “vinegar”, /sāph/ “clean”. There are a great many names for the Bengali Muslims that start with /s/, e.g., /selim/, /samaḍ/ (Arabic ṣḍ/. Words with /z/ are /zāmān/, /āzāḍ/, /āzīz/which are very distinctively Muslim names and are likely to be pronounced by Hindus as well as some Muslims as /jāmān/, /ājāḍ/ and /ājīj/. The Muslim dialect has some final consonant clusters which are not present in the Hindu dialect, for example: /gošṭ/ “meat”, /ḍosṭ“friend”, /ḍ“cover of a book”, /hamḍ“a song in praise of God”.

b) Features of morphology: In the Hindu and Muslim dialects the pronominal forms, the case endings and the verb forms do not show any difference. The only morphological difference may be detected in the use of some Persian and Arabic suffixes. Many such suffixes have been assimilated in the language completely, but some of them still survive as specifically Muslim suffixes. For example, words with prefixes like /kɔm/ as in /kɔm ākkel/ “foolish”, /kɔm baǩṭ/ “unfortunate” are mostly used by Muslims. The suffix /i/ [nisbā] from Arabic has entered the language in such a way that it is used by all. For example: Bangladesh- Bangladeshi, Bihar-Bihari, pahar-pahari. Hilali in his Perso-Arabic


Elements in Bengali (1967) mentions this form as being borrowed from Persian, but as the form is prevalent in Arabic as well we may assume either.

c) Syntactical differences: In the syntactic structure of Muslim Bengali (MB) as opposed to the Hindu Bengali (HB), we may notice some special use of certain prepositional forms in cases where normally SCB would use postpositional forms. For example, /baaḍjuma/ “after the Juma prayers” meaning early afternoon, /baaḍmagreb/ “after the Magreb prayers” meaning after sunset.

d) Lexical differences: The greatest divergence in the Hindu and Muslim dialects of Bengali lies in the difference in the lexical items used by the two communities. It appears that the lexicon used by the Hindus and the Muslims differs in certain well-defined semantic areas, such as kinship terminology, proper names and nicknames, forms of address, greetings and politeness formulas, and terms for food and clothing. About one-fourth of the basic vocabulary items of the Muslims are different from those of the Hindus.36

Dil in her discussion of the general verbal and non-verbal behavior of Hindus and Muslims 37 shows the dominance of Arabic elements in the greetings, politeness formulas, verbal signals, and interjections and exclamations like /assalamo alaikum/, /haa-e Allah/, /subhan Allah/, /maša Allah/.38 She has also provided a section on the 209-word “Basic Vocabulary” of Bengali.39 The term Basic Vocabulary of a language is that which has the attributes of historical commonness and persistence without variants and resistance to borrowing, for example, /māchh/ (fish), but even in this domain there was a difference in the word for water /pāni/ used by Muslims and /jɔl/ by Hindus – even though /p ā ni/ is a word of Sanskrit origin. The common word /dim/ (egg) has two additional variants in Muslim speech /āndā/ (Sanskrit origin) and /bɔeḍā/ (Arabic word). The domain of food40 shows that even though the same raw materials are used by both the communities as they are cooked and dishes are ready they are given different names. For bath the Hindus use /šnān/ and the Muslims use /gosol/. The section on clothing41 also shows a number of items

36 Dil, Afia, 1972, pp. 32-33; 1991, pp. 48-49 37 Dil, Afia, pp. 75-79 38 Dil, Afia, pp. 137-41 39 Dil, Afia, pp. 87-97 40 Dil, Afia, pp. 141-48 41 Dil, Afia, pp. 148-51

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borrowed from Arabic. The influence of Arabic is also well marked in the nearly one hundred items of kinship terminology42 and the differences show the two systems of terms as isomorphic in that the terms have translation equivalents but the connotations and behavioral implications may be very different. The section on proper names and nicknames is covered on pages 111- 137.

Dil concluded her study as follows: “[The Hindus and Muslims] now speak two distinct varieties of the language, each correlated with communal affiliation, but with a common core in the language shared by both. Even if an individual Bengali does not profess to be either a devout Muslim or an orthodox Hindu, he is unmistakably marked as a Muslim or a Hindu by both his verbal and non-verbal behavior. Though the growing interaction between the two communities may have made each more aware of the other’s distinctiveness and there is at present an increase in code-switching and interpenetration of the two dialects, it is possible to conceive that when Hindus and Muslims speak in their own family circles, in their own social spheres, the dialects used by them would be clearly either the Hindu or the Muslim variety.” The main feature of distinctness in the Muslim variety is the influence of Arabic and in the Hindu variety of Sanskrit loanwords and cultural outlook. One often comes across Arabic words like Saiyed, Shaikh, Maulana as part of the names of Bengali Muslims.

Monsur Musa43 talked about the usage of Perso- Arabic vocabulary that entered the speech of Bengali Muslims and were used in Bengali newspapers. He noted that in recent years the Bengali newspapers tend to use words of Arabic origin rather than words of Persian origin. For example, salaṭin place of namaz, siyam in place of roza/roja, Allah in place of Khuda. He also mentioned that during the month of Ramadan (fasting) these words multiply. More importantly, Musa mentioned that the spelling of these loanwords is also undergoing a change, for example, jamaṭis written jamayaṭ, tofsir as tafsir, moulana as maulana, rosul as rasul, rohmanir rohim as rahmanir rahim. Arabic terms like aakheri munajaat (last prayer) and mahe ramjan (the month of fasting) are examples of terms that are being used nowadays. Musa observed that sometimes these changes are difficult for the ordinary Bengali Muslims to follow. He gave extensive

42 Ibid, pp. 97-106 43 Musa, Mansur, Bangladesher Rastrabhasa [Bengali: The State Language of

Bangladesh], Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1995, pp. 92-93


examples from Syed Waliullah’s novel Lal Shalu where the author used a sociolect (also known as mollabuli – the dialect of the moulvi) that is used in institutions like the mosque, the dargahs or khanqahs of the saints and the astanas of the dervishes and in religious festivals like milad, wa’j (sermon), janaja munajat (funeral prayers), jalsa (festive gatherings), and bahas (religious discussions). This sociolect is largely used in the funeral ceremonies. Musa has given a list of seven hundred Perso-Arabic loanwords in which there are a large number of words of Arabic origin.44

James Wilce, an American scholar in a recent article (2005) wrote: “There are no large corpus-based linguistic studies of Bengali, let alone of the frequency of Perso-Arabic terms in actual instances of contemporary Bengali discourse. … According to Hilali (1967) there are 9,000 such loan-words but the relation of such counts to actual usage is unknown.” Based on his own research Wilce observed: “Arabic-laden prayers and other speech registers – and metadiscourses on the frequency of loan-words – reflect linguistic ideologies inseparable from postcoloniality and competing nationalisms.” He concluded his essay with this observation: “While for some, proliferating loan-words represent an impure accretion on the language of the land of Bengal, for others they can signal the true identity of the Bangladeshi nation-state – an Islamic identity. … And there are many positions in between, for example, those who celebrate Bengali authors’ playful use of Perso-Arabic loan-words.”

The subject of Arabic loanwords has been acknowledged as an important subject of study and research in a number of languages of the world, especially in areas where Islam has had a deep historic influence in about sixty nation-states in our time that have Muslim majority in population or that call themselves Islamic and/or Muslim nations. Among the languages that have a prominent number of Arabic loanwords mention should be made here of Berber, Catalan, French, Hausa, Indonesian, Italian, Kurdish, Malay, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Sicilian, Sindhi, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu. A number of the loanwords are not borrowed directly from Arabic into the borrowing language but through an intermediary language, for example, a number of words in Bengali are borrowed through Persian and Urdu languages. Persian, Sicilian, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese are languages that exemplify

44 Musa, pp. 125-28

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the Arabic loanwords directly from Arabic because for centuries they were part of the Arab Empire during the Middle Ages. It is estimated that there are more than four thousand words of Arabic in Spanish. A very large number of toponyms (place names) in Spanish are also Arabic or Arabic derivations. A large number of terms and phrases in Spanish are adapted or translated from Arabic. Turkish language shows a great deal of similar influence because of the more than six centuries of Ottoman Empire (c.1299-1922) and is identified as Ottoman Turkish. It was the revolution of Mustafa Kamal that laid the foundations of the modern Republic of Turkey and under his orders, the Turkish language undertook in 1932 to replace the Arabic and Persian loanwords with words of Turkish origin.

The subject of Arabic loanwords in Bengali has not attracted the attention of Bengali or international scholars as much as it deserves especially because Bangladesh was created as a secular state in 1971 even though some political leaders backed by Islamic groups have been moving it toward a dominantly Muslim state. Unquestionably, the country has been developing very close relations with the Arab world especially with its need to borrow foreign exchange for its development projects especially from Saudi Arabia. In defining its cultural identity a number of political leaders have been emphasizing the importance of Arabic in its educational and socio-cultural programs. The subject of Arabic loanwords is therefore of great importance in Bangladesh in defining its national ideology.

The present paper is an attempt to describe the extensive linguistic and cultural borrowing as it has affected the language and culture of the Muslim Bengal. In fact, the language of present-day Bangladesh with a population of over 158 million shows a continuation of the tradition of borrowing from Arabic. To a Bengali Muslim, the knowledge of Arabic is a sign of his individual and social personality. Through massive borrowing, Bengali Muslims have carved for themselves a new identity in their way of speech and have created a new Bengali Muslim dialect.

2. Varieties of Arabic

Arabic is spoken by over 600 million people over the area from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. It is one of the six international languages used officially in the United Nations. The most important variety of Arabic is the Classical Arabic in


which the Qur’an is written which has continued as the Standard Arabic for more than fourteen centuries. It has a large variety of spoken dialects known as Colloquial Arabic. The colloquial varieties of Arabic show great variations, but the speakers of these dialects all consider themselves to be speaking Arabic, as it happens in Bengali. Even when the dialects are sometimes mutually unintelligible, speakers still claim that they are speaking the same language. Various scholars have studied the existence of classical and colloquial Arabic in a diglossia relationship.45

Some of the colloquial varieties in Arabic (as happens in all languages) are regarded as more prestigious than others. For example, the dialects of important cities like Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, are all considered to be more “prestigious” than those of less important places. Speakers of these standard dialects often believe that their variety is closest to the Standard Language of the Qur’an. The fact that Arabic has spread far and wide as a language of business and has close contact with other languages around the world has produced forms of pidginized Arabic that are found, for example, in East and South Africa.

The variety called Modern Standard Arabic, according to Charles Ferguson, a leading scholar of Arabic, is the uniform language used all over the Arab world as the medium of written as well as oral communication. It is used in radio broadcasts, on the stage, in formal speeches, lectures or sermons, and on any formal occasion. Modern Standard Arabic differs very little from Classical Arabic (Abboud, 1968), which is the language of the Qur’an and the literary language of pre-Islamic poetry as well as the best Arabic literature. But it is the language of the Qur’an, that is Classical Arabic, that has traveled the most into various countries, though a number of dialects also have traveled through the Arab traders and the religious preachers and saints.

It is often difficult to know whether an Arabic loanword in Bengali has come directly from an Arabic dialect or through an intermediary of other languages, e.g., Persian and Turkish. In his discussion of the foreign loanwords in Bengali,

45 Ferguson, Charles A, “Diglossia”, Word, Vol. 15, No. 2, 1959, pp. 325-40; Dil, Afia,

“Diglossia in Bangla: A Study of Shifts in the Verbal Repertoire of the Educated Classes in Dhaka, Bangladesh”, in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), The Fergusonian Impact: II: Sociolinguistics and the Sociology of Language, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986, pp. 451-65.

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Suniti Kumar Chatterjee 46 stated that Arabic loanwords came into Bengali through Persian: “Arabic words have come into Bengali through the medium of Persian, after these were naturalized in that language and had conformed to its phonetics: as such, they are to be treated as Persian words.” In support of this statement, he pointed out in a footnote that: “Bengal was never settled in by any considerable body of Arabs from whom Arabic words might be borrowed by the people of the land.” He also mentioned that there is no instance of borrowing the word initial Arabic article /al/, so characteristic of Arabic nouns and adjectives. It is a known fact that in Spain, where Spanish speakers came in intimate contact with the Arabic speaking Moors, Spanish has borrowed Arabic words with the article /al/ that has gone to other countries in Southern America where Spanish is spoken. When Persian borrowed Arabic words, it “received most of its Arabic elements more through books than through contact with Arabic speakers” and that is why Persian has no /al/ as a part of its borrowed Arabic words. Bengali also does not have /al/ as a part of its borrowed Arabic words, because Bengali borrowed Arabic mainly through Persian. The present essay is not the place where a lengthy argument can be presented to show how far this conjecture is true, but a few points deserve to be put on record. It is quite clear from historical records that more than one Arabic dialect has been the source of Arabic loanwords in Bengali. People who came from Arabia were from different parts of the Arabic speaking regions and naturally they brought in different dialects of Arabic.

It is not true that Bengal was never settled in by any considerable body of Arabs from whom Arabic words might be borrowed by the people of the land. Even before the political conquest of Bengal by Muhammad Bakhtiar in 1204 A.D., the ground was well prepared to receive the Muslim rulers by the presence of a large number of Muslims in the country. Many Sufi dervishes, missionaries and religious leaders had started to come to Bengal from the 8th century A.D., and a number of businessmen from Arabia, and Persia even before that time had been carrying on trade by sea-route with the Bengalees.

The present study has taken examples from the Classical Arabic as the basis for analysis to show the variations that have taken place in the process of borrowing. In other words, we have assumed that all the loanwords have been

46 Chatterji, Suniti Kumar, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language, Vols.

1 & 2, First published by University of Calcutta Press, Calcutta, 1926, p. 559.


borrowed from Classical Arabic, even though in reality, many of them must have come through a number of varieties of Arabic as well as other related languages, which themselves had borrowed them from Arabic, for example, Persian and Turkish. The distinct differences in the phonological structure of Bengali spoken by Muslims might have been affected by the extensive Arabic borrowings. Some loanwords often have learned connotations but a large number of them are of ordinary, everyday usage, for example, thom (garlic) and mouz (banana).

It is possible that Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee being a Hindu, and not being in a position to observe closely the Muslims in their everyday situations, could not really measure the central position that Arabic holds in a Muslim household and consequently the effect Arabic has on their speech. The simple fact that Bengali, like Persian, does not borrow the article (al) of Arabic words should not lead persons to conclude that it is not Arabic but Persian as the source of such borrowings. In fact, one could say that if Persian could borrow such a large number of Arabic words without the Arabic /al/, there is no reason why Bengali cannot borrow Arabic words without it. It is only an article which adds definiteness to the noun or the adjective. Ordinary Arabic words in citation forms are always without the /al/.In general, it is also found that languages do not borrow articles from another language. They mostly borrow substantives. We all know that even though we have borrowed a large number of English words, we have not borrowed the article ‘the’ or ‘a’.

According to Dr. Enamul Haq, “Bengali has never been outside the pale of Muslim influence from the period of its inception to the period of its modern development. During its formative period (900 A.D. to 1200 A.D.), the language came in contact with Islam through missionary and maritime activities of the Muslims of Arabia and Persia. … These commercial relations were undoubtedly strengthened by the influx of a band of Muslim missionaries known as Darwishes, men like Sultan Bayizid Bistami (d. 874 A.D.), … ”.47 He also mentioned Shah Niamatullah Butshikan, who built a Khanqah or monastery at Khilgaon, now known as Dilkusha Bagh in Dhaka. Even though no one can be very precise about the extent of influence of these early merchants and saints on the people of Bengal, it is true that they did lay the

47 Enamul Huq, 1962, p. 103

128 Afia Dil

foundation of the Muslim faith in Bengal and definitely exercised influence on the culture of the people and their speech.

It is not only the number of Muslims who came to settle in Bengal that determined the borrowing; it is the influence of the religion that came and changed the character of the people who accepted Islam because it broke down the barriers of the caste system and introduced the principles of equality of all people and social justice. The Bengalees, after they became Muslims, were required to read the Qur’an in Arabic and say their prayers in Arabic. This requirement is as strong today as it was centuries ago. Muslims all over the world have to read the Qur’an in Arabic and have to say their prayers five times a day in Arabic. Even though common people do not understand the Qur’an when they read it, there are a large number of scholars in the region who read the Qur’an with understanding. In recent decades the Qur’an has been translated in Bengali for understanding the meaning, but the reading of the translation is considered supplementary to reciting of the original Qur’an in Arabic. Moreover, Muslims are required to go on pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetime and every year thousands of Muslims have been going to Mecca for pilgrimage. The pilgrims go and stay there as long as they can afford to and when they come back they always bring back some Arabic words that they learned to use there and a number of them have entered into the Bengali language.

There has been a long-standing tradition in Bengal to send boys to Arabic schools and colleges, known as maktabs and madrasas, before they go to regular schools. Many persons in positions of importance in several fields including university professors had their early education in Arabic in madrasas before they were sent to schools. When the saints were settled in Bengal, they always had khanqas established, where people got their education. It is more likely than not that Arabic was one of the languages used in those khanqas.

Most Bengali Muslim names are chosen from the Qur’an. These are generally the names and epithets of Allah (God), the names of Prophet Muhammad and other prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. Other common names are taken from the caliphs and the saints of Islam. Literate parents try to find the child’s first name from the Qur’an. Illiterate parents try to find the same from a moulvi or from a respected literate person in the locality. Besides the religious sources, other important sources of names for Muslims are nature, plants, animals,


minerals and other elements as well as characteristics of the human mind. Even here, the first choice is sure to be Arabic or Persian. For example, it is quite common to have a Muslim girl called /nasimā/ “breeze”, /hāoā/ “breeze”, /hābībā/ “beloved”, /jāmīlā/ “beautiful”, /hālīmā / “patient/, /lūlū/ “pearl” and so on.

3. Expected Changes in Vowel Sounds in Bengali

The Standard Colloquial Bengali has a simple vowel system consisting of seven (eight, according to some scholars) vowel sounds /i e æ a ɔ o u/ and Arabic has an even simpler vowel system with only three short vowels /i a u/ where /a/ corresponds more or less to /ə/ as in English “but” and three long vowels /ī ā ū/, where ā corresponds to English /æ/ as in “bat”. Superficially speaking, therefore, it would appear that Bengali speakers would have no problem in transferring the Arabic vowel sounds in the loanwords. But it is not that simple, as explained below. Length is not phonemic in Bengali, so, the very first change that occurs in the borrowed words is that the distinction in length in Arabic is not maintained. Generally speaking, Bengali vowels tend to be long in monosyllabic words and short otherwise. Our survey of the vowel changes in Bengali shows that Arabic short vowels are realized as the corresponding low vowels, depending on the following vowel. In other words, if the following vowel is the low short /a/, the high vowels are lowered, i.e., /i/ is lowered to /e/, and /u/ is lowered to /o/; but if /a/ is followed by high vowels it is raised to /o/ if followed by /u/ and to /e/ if it is followed by /i/. The Arabic short vowels /i, a, u/ when final are not changed. While examining the correspondence of Arabic vowels with Bengali vowels one has also to remember that in Arabic no word starts with a vowel. It always starts with a consonant, and as Bengali does not have any equivalent sound for hamza or ’æn,48

words beginning with hamza or ’æn sound to a Bengali ear as if they are vowel sounds. The alif, which Arabic uses as the seat for hamza also adds to the misguidance because to a Bengalee the alif stands for the vowel sound /ā/ rather than the consonant. Thus, in words that start with hamza or ’æn, the Bengalees always drop the hamza or the ’æn, and there is a compensatory lengthening of the short vowel, whether a faṭah /a/, kasrah /i/ or ḍamma /u/, either at the beginning or the middle of a word.

48 In Arabic is the glottal stop.

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3.1 Arabic /a/ and /ā/ Following the preceding rule we find that while Arabic /ā/ is always realized as Bengali /a/, Arabic /a/ while generally realized as Bengali low rounded /ɔ/ shows variations. For example, Arabic /ā/ Bengali /a/:

/hawā/ /hāwā/ (air) /harām/ /hārām/ (not permitted) /ḍā /ḍān/ (shop, stall) /munāsib/ /munāsib/ (suitable)

The Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet is read, unlike English, from right to left.

Alif / أ/ is really the seat of the sound of the glottal stop / ء/ Hamza, which can be found initially, medially and finally in a word. Arabic never starts a word with a vowel sound. Arabic has no vowel letters but three signs for the short vowels: 1) Fatah / O/ which goes on the top of a letter has the value of a short /a/; 2) Kasrah / O / which goes under the letter has the value of a short /i/; 3) Dammah / O / goes on the top of the letter and has the value of a short /u/. All these three vowels can be made into long vowels with the help of a consonant


symbol with it. The short /a/ becomes /ā/ when the fatah is followed by an alif, the short /i/ becomes long / ī /when followed by the letter /y/, and the short /u/ becomes /ū/ when followed by /w/. / O / Shaddah indicates that the consonant is duplicated. When the consonant of the enlongated Fatah is Alif the signs of the Fatah and the stressing Alif are replaced by / آ/ Maddah.

The Bengali Alphabet The Bengali alphabet is read, like English, from left to right.

Variations 1) In syllables with initial consonants other than hamza or ’aen, Arabic /a/ is realized as Bengali low round /ɔ/, as in:

/ǩabar/ /khɔbɔr/ (news) /ŧalab/ /ṭɔlɔb/ (demand or need)

132 Afia Dil

/qabađ / /kɔbɔj/ (constipation) 2) All syllables with Arabic /a/ with hamza or ’aen as initial or middle consonants, are realized as Bengali /ā/, for example:

/’allāhu/ / āllāhu/ (O God) /’awwal/ /āwwāl/ (first) /’aql/ /ākkel/ (reason) /ba’ḍ/ /bāḍ/ (after) /jama’/ /jɔmā/ (addition)

3) If the Arabic /a/ is followed by a consonant cluster, it isgenerally realized as a Bengali /ā/, for example:

/haml/ /hāmel/ (pregnant)) 4) If the Arabic /a/ is followed by the high vowel /i/ it is often realized as Bengali /o/

/naṣīb/ /nosīb/ (destiny) /šarīk/ /šorīk/ (partner)

5) In some cases Arabic /a/ is realized as Bengali /i/, where /a/ is followed by a consonant cluster and a high vowel, as in:

/ṣanḍūq/ /šinḍūk/ (box) 6) Words in Arabic which end in taa marbuuta (ṭat the end of words) lose it as well as the nunation in pausal form. For example,

/mālikaṭun/ is pronounced as /mālikā/. When such words are borrowed in Bengali (the nunation is never borrowed), the /h/ is dropped and the final Arabic /ā/ is produced as Bengali /ā/, for example: /huqqah/ /hukkāh/ /hukkā/ (tobaccopipe). 7) If the Arabic short /a/ is followed in the second syllable by the corresponding long /ā/, it is realized in Bengali as /ā/ rather than /ɔ/.

/ŧalāq/ /ṭālāk/ (divorce) /harām/ /hārām/ (forbidden)

3.2 Arabic /i/ and /ī/ It appears that Arabic /i/ and /ī/ are both realized as Bengali /i/, but whereas Arabic /ī/ is always realized as Bengali /i/, Arabic short /i/ is realized, in a few cases, as the Bengali middle front vowel /e/ and low vowel /a/. For example:

/qibla/ /keblā/~/kiblā/ /ṣāŧ/ /serāṭ/~/sirāṭ/ (straight) /bāliğ/ /bāleg/~/bālɔg/ (adult) /lihāf/ /lep/ (quilt) /naṣīb/ /nosīb/ (destiny) /ṭāīǩ/ /ṭarīkh/ (history, date) /šarīk/ /šorik/ (partner)


/kāfir/ /kāfer/~/kāfir/ (nonbeliever) /masjiḍ/ /mošjiḍ/ (mosque) /’iţr/ /āṭɔr/ (perfume) /mīlāḍ/ /milāḍ/ (birthday celebration of the Prophet Muhammad) /kiṭā /kiṭāb/~/keṭā/ (religious books)

In the examples cited above, in only one case the Arabic /’/ becomes /ā/.

3.3 Arabic /u/ and /ū/ The Arabic long /ū/ is realized as Bengali /u/ in all cases and the short /u/ is realized as /o/ if followed by the low vowel /a/ in the next syllable. For example,

/ŧūfān/~/ṭuphān/ (storm, tempest) /muǩālif/~/mukhāliph/~/mokhaliph/ (opponent, enemy) /munāsib/~/munāsib/ ~/monāsib/ (proper, appropriate)

In other words, generally speaking, all the long vowels of Arabic are realized by the corresponding vowels in Bengali. Arabic /ā/ Bengali /a/, Arabic /ī/ Bengali /i/, and Arabic /ū/ Bengali /u/. But the short vowels differ in their

realization. Generally speaking, however, Arabic /a/ is realized as Bengali low round /ɔ/, /u/ as /o/, and /i/ as /e/.

4. Consonant Sounds 4.1 Arabic ب /b/ The Arabic /b/ is realized as Bengali /b/ in all positions:

/baḍala/ /bɔḍɔl/ (to replace) /barkāṭun/ /bɔrkāṭ/ (blessing) /bayān/ /bɔyān/ (clear manifestation) /baqiya/ /bɔkeya/ (debt) /baǩīl/ /bokhīl/ (miser) /bāin/ /bāin/ (final) /jaib/ /jeb/ (pocket) /qibla/ /keblā/ (the direction of the Ka’ba) /ŧabl/ /ṭablā/ (a small drum)

4.2 Arabic ت /ṭ/ The Arabic /ṭ/ is realized as Bengali /ṭ/ in all positions:

/zakāṭ/ /zākāṭ/ ~ /jākāṭ/ (poor-due) /ṭarjama/ /ṭɔrjɔmā/ (translation) /faṭiḥa/ /phāṭehā/ (the opening chapter of the Quran)

4.3 Arabic ث /ṯh/ The Arabic /ṯh/ is realized as Bengali dental /s/ in all positions. In one dialect however, the present writer heard /ṯh/ being realized as Bengali stop /th/, which is nearer the pronunciation of Arabic /ṯh/.

134 Afia Dil

/ṯhawāb/ /sɔoāb/ (requital, merit) /kauṯhar/ /kausār/ (plentiful) /baḥaṯha/ /bāhās/ (to look, research) /haḍīṯ/ /hāḍīs/~/ hāḍīchh/ (Prophet’s saying or tradition) /ṯhaum/ /thom/ (garlic)

4.4 Arabic ج /j/

The Arabic /j/ is pronounced as Bengali /j/ in all positions. /jubba/ /jubbā/ (a long garment) /jalsa/ /jɔlsā/ (to sit) /jama’a/ /jɔmā/ (to gather, collect) /jāmi’aṭ/ /jāmiā/ (university) /jāhilun/ /jāhel/ (ignorant) /hajj/ /hɔj/ (pilgrimage) /ḍarājāṭun/ /ḍɔrjā/ (door, entry). In Arabic other meanings are (step,

ladder, rank, position) 4.5 Arabic ح /ḥ/ The Arabic /ḥ/ is a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, and it is realized as Bengali /h/ which is a voiced velar fricative, in all positions. But /h/ is very rare in the final position in Bengali

/ḥujra/ /hujrā/ /ḥarb/ /hɔrɔb/ (war) /ḥukm/ /hukum/ (government) /ḥamḍ/ /hamḍ/ (praise) /ḥā /hāl/ (condition) /ḥarf/ /hɔrɔf/ (letter) /ḍabaḥ/ /jɔbāh/ (sacrifice) /ḥā /hišāb/ (count) /wāḥeḍ/ /wāheḍ/ (one)

4.6 Arabic خ /ǩ/

The Arabic /ǩ/ is a voiceless velar fricative, and as Bengali does not have a voiceless velar fricative, it is substituted by the velar aspirated stop /kh/. /ǩ/ is rather infrequent in the final position.

/ǩabar/ /khɔbɔr/ (news) /ǩiḍmaṭ/ /kheḍmɔṭ/ (service) /ǩāṣ/ /khās/ (special)


/ǩalifa/ /kholifā/ (representative) /muǩliṣ/ /mukhlis/ (sincere) /ḍaǩalā/ /ḍɔkhɔl/ (to enter) /ǩatama/ /khɔtɔm/ (to seal) /baǩt/ /bɔkht/ (luck) /baǩšiš/ /bokhšiš/ (tip) /šayǩ/ /šekh/ (chief)

4.7 Arabic د /ḍ/ The Arabic voiced dental stop is pronounced in Bengali as a voiced dental stop in all positions.

/ḍaǩala/ /ḍɔkhɔl/ (to capture) /maḍrasaṭun/ /māḍrāsā/ (Arabic teaching school) /ḍuniyā/ /ḍuniā/ (world) /ḍaolaṭun/ /ḍoulaṭ/ (wealth, property) /ḍī/ /ḍīn/ (religion) /ḍīā /ḍinār/ (dinar) /mayḍā /mɔyḍān/ (open place) /hamḍ/ /hāmḍ/ (praise of God) /mīlāḍ/ /milāḍ/ (Birth celebration of Prophet Muhammad)

4.8 Arabic ذ /ḍ/ interdental voiced fricative Generally Arabic /ḍ/ is substituted by Bengali voiced dental stop /ḍ/. Bengali does not have any interdental fricative, voiced or voiceless. While the Arabic voiceless interdental fricative /th/ is substituted by the voiceless dental stop /th/, the voiced interdental fricative / ḍh/ is substituted by the alveopalatal voiced affricate /j/. Among some of the sophisticated Muslims, however, it is sometimes substituted by the alveolar voiced fricative /z/, which is absent in Bengali phonology. However, the phoneme /z/ is a part of the Muslim Bengali dialect.49 This apparent anomaly is represented in the writing system as well. Ordinarily speaking the borrowed words would be spelt by {j}, the voiced alveolar affricate, but {j} for the sound /z/ is also used, and after 1947, the use of the letter {z} has become very popular with the Muslims. The use of the symbol {z} had become a symbol of the Islamization process that went on in the country. A subcommittee for the spelling reconstruction in Bengali founded by the Bengali Academy had recommended that to transliterate English and

49 Dil, Afia, The Hindu and Muslim Dialects of Bengali.

136 Afia Dil

Arabic, Bengali should use {z}. But the recommendations had never been accepted in practice.50 But while the use of {z} is common for the Arabic /ḍ/, in a very interesting and frequently occurring example /ḍ/ is substituted by the Bengali /j/, an affricate, for example /ḍikr/ /jikir/ (recital of God’s names and attributes) and Arabic /ḍabh/ /jɔbāh/ (to slaughter). 4.9 Arabic ر /r/ In all positions Arabic /r/ is substituted by Bengali /r/.

/rabbun/ /rɔb/ (God) /rahmaṭ/ /rɔhmɔṭ/ (beneficence) /rasūl/ /rosūl/ (prophet) /rūh/ /rūh/ (spirit) /qabar/ /kɔbɔr/ (grave) /harf/ /hɔrɔph/ (letter, syllable) /ḍafṭar/ /ḍɔphṭɔr/ (notebook, copybook, journal ledger) /āǩiraṭ/ /ākhirāṭ/ (the other world)

4.10 Arabic ز /z/ Bengali does not have any /z/ sound ordinarily. But it has been accepted by the Muslims in their dialect, mainly in personal names, but in everyday conversation Arabic /z/ is rendered as the Bengali /j/. But as has been mentioned earlier, ever since 1947 Muslim Bengalees, under the influence of Urdu language, have learnt to make the distinction between /z/ and /j/ and a new phoneme /z/ has sprung up.51 Thus most of the words with /z/ are pronounced with both /j/ and /z/. It is not rare, therefore, to find someone saying /zaman/ instead of /jaman/. This trend is also visible in the new spellings innovated for these words:

/zamāna/ /jamānā/ (time) /wazīr/ /ujir/ (minister) /wazn/ /ojon/ (weight, measure) /zakāṭ/ /jākāṭ/ (poor-due) /mizān/ /mijān/ (balance, scale) /fāyez/ /phāyej/ (successful)

50 Chowdhury, Munier, Bangla Gadyareeti (Bengali: Bengali Prose Style), Dhaka:

Central Board for Development of Bengali, 1970, p. 11 51 Dil, Afia, The Hindu and Muslim Dialects of Bengali.


4.11 Arabic س /s/ Arabic /s/ is represented in Bengali as /s/, but Bengali has no initial /s/ except in the speech of Bengali Muslims. Thus we encounter two pronunciations of Arabic /s/, both /s/ and /š/. In words that are used mostly or only by the Muslims, the initial /s/ is retained as /s/, otherwise it is pronounced as /š/, initially and sometimes even medially, e.g., in /sɔphɔr/ for Arabic /safar/ (journey), and /hišāb/ for Arabic /ḥisāb/ (account, reckoning, calculation, arithmetic). In some cases where /s/ is a part of a consonant cluster, in some dialects /s/ even disappears, for example, /mošjiḍ/ ~ /mojiḍ/.

/safar/ /sɔphɔr/ (travel) /salām/ /sālām/ (greeting) /sunnaṭ/ /sunnaṭ/ /sana/ /šɔn/ (year) /masjiḍ/ /mošjiḍ/ (mosque) /ḥisāb/ /hišāb/ (count) /nafis/ /nophis/ (precious) /nafs/ /naphs/ (soul)

4.12 Arabic ش /š/ Arabic /š/ is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative and is pronounced as Bengali /š/ in all positions.

/šarbaṭ/ /šɔrbɔṭ/ (sweet drink) /šarāb/ / šɔrāb/ (wine) /mašriki/ /mašriki/ (eastern) /muškilaṭ/ /muškil/ (problem) /šāmil/ /šāmil/ (to include) /šayŧān/ /šayṭān/ (devil) /šaǩs/ /šɔkhs/ (individual, person) /farš/ /phɔrāš/ (furnishing, household effects) /išṭāhār/ /išṭehār/ (advertisement)

4.13 Arabic ص / ṣ/ Arabic /ṣ/ is a velarized voiceless alveolar s. It is realized in Bengali as /š/ except in some words of Muslim Bengali where it is realized as /s/. In some cases the /ṣ/ is realized as /ch~chh/, e.g., Arabic /qiṣṣa/ /kissā/~/kichchhā/.

/ṣubahun/ /subāh/ (morning) /ṣabara/ /sobur/~/sɔbɔr/~/šobur/ (patience) /ṣā /šāhārā/ (desert) /ṣaḍarun/ /sɔḍɔr/ (chest)

138 Afia Dil

/ṣaḍaqatun/ /saḍkā/ (alms, charitable giving) /miṣr/ /mišɔr/ (Egypt) /ṣaḍiq/ /sāḍek/ (friend) /ṣiḍḍiq/ /siḍḍik/ (upright)

4.14 Arabic ض /đ/ The emphatic /đ/, a velarized voiced alveolar stop, is realized as Bengali voiced alveopalatal affricate /j/ all the time. However, nowadays there is a tendency among the Bengali Muslims to substitute /z/ in place of /j/ in many of the words, e.g., /qāđi/ may be /kāji/ or /kāzi/.

/farđ/ /phɔrɔj/ (duty, precept) /qabđā/ /kɔbjā/ (hinge) /fuđūl/ /phojūl/ (excessive, superfluous) /đarūri/ /jorūri/ (necessary) /fađl/ /phɔjɔl/ (to bestow, grant, confer, deign) /qađā/ /kājā/~/kāzā/ (complete)

4.15 Arabic ط /ŧ/ Arabic /ŧ/, a voiceless velarized alveolar stop, is realized as Bengali /ṭ/, a voiceless dental stop. In other words, there is no distinction in Bengali speech between Arabic /ŧ/ and Arabic /ṭ/.

/ŧariqun/ /ṭorikā/ (way) /ŧalāq/ /ṭālāk/ (divorce) /ŧaraf/ /ṭɔrɔph/ (side, party, estate) /maŧlab/ /mɔṭlɔb/ (wish, desire) /fiŧraṭ/ /phiṭrāṭ/ (creation, nature) /bāŧalā/ /bāṭil/ (to become void, null) /ṣirāŧ/ /sirāṭ/ (way, path, road)

4.16 Arabic ظ /ẓ/ The emphatic /ẓ/, voiced velarized fricative, is realized as Bengali /j/ in all positions. Among the Bengali Muslims, it is also realized as /z/.

/ẓuhrun/ /johor/ ~ /zohor/ (noon) /naẓar/ /nɔjor/ (eyesight, vision) /ẓulm/ /julum/ (wrong, inequity) /ẓālim/ /jālim/ (unjust, unfair) /ẓāhir/ /jāhir/ (helper, assistant) /iẓhār/ /ijhār/ ~ /ejhār/ (exposition, exhibition) /ğalīẓ/ /golīj/ ( dirt, filth, foul)


4.17 Arabic / ’/ ع Arabic ’æn is a glottal stop which is absent in Bengali sound system. It is, therefore, substituted by the simple vowel /a/

/’ajābun/ /ājɔb/ (astonishing) /’arabiy/ /ārbi/ (Arabic) /’aql/ /ākɔl/ (reason, intelligence) /’ursun/ /urus/ (wedding, celebrations in the memory of a saint) /’azīz/ /ājīj/ (friend, male name) /’ilm/ /elem/ (knowledge) /’ālam/ /ālɔm/ (universe) /’alim/ /ālim/ ~ /ālem/ (learned) /’allāmāh/ /āllāmā/ (very learned) /fir’aun/ /pherāun/ (Pharaoh) /’amal/ /āmal/ (doing, acting)

4.18 Arabic غ /ğ / The Arabic ğæn, voiced velar fricative /ğ/, is realized as the voiced velar stop /g/ in all positions in Bengali.

/ğarīb/ /gorīb/ (strange, foreign, poor) /ğayrāh/ /gɔyrɔhɔ/ (other than) /mağrib/ /magreb/ (West) /bāliğ/ /bāleg/ ~ /bālɔg/ (adolescent)

4.19 Arabic ف /f/ Arabic /f/, a voiceless interdental fricative, is realized in Bengali as a voiceless bilabial aspirated stop /ph/ in all positions.

/farq/ /phārāk/ (difference) /ṭafsīl/ /tophsīl/ (details, meaning) /haraf/ /hɔrɔph/ (letter, syllable) /nafs/ /nɔphs/ (soul, psyche) /farš/ /phɔrāš/ (furnishing, mat, rug, carpet) /fikr/ /phikir/ (thinking, consideration, thought) /ğilāf/ /gilāph/ (cover, wrap, case)

4.20 Arabic ق /q/ Arabic /q/, an emphatic voiceless uvular stop, is realized in Bengali as a voiceless velar stop /k/.

/huqqah/ /hukkā/ (tobacco-pipe) /qiṣṣah/ /kissā ~ kichchhā/ (story) /qā’iḍah/ /kāyḍā(rule, grammar) /qasāra/ /kosur/ (fault)

140 Afia Dil

/qā’im/ /kāem/ (standing, existing) /qiblah/ /keblā/ ~ /kiblā/ (direction of the Kabah in Mecca) /qabūl/ /kobūl/ (reception) /qaul/ /kɔul/ (word, speech, declaration) /qaṭala/ /kɔṭɔl/ (to kill) /qaḍr/ /kɔḍɔr/ (extent, scope, quantity, degree, value) /ṭaqrīr/ /ṭɔkrīr/ (statement) /qarđ/ /kɔrj/ (usury) /qalb/ /kɔlɔb/ (heart) /haqq/ /hɔk/ (true) /farq/ /phārāk/ (difference

4.21 Arabic ك /k/ Arabic /k/, a voiceless velar stop, and /q/, a voiceless emphatic uvular stop, are interchangeable in Bengali and both are realized as the voiceless velar stop /k/ in all positions.

/kāfir/ /kāpher/ (unbeliever) /kāḍhib/ /kājeb/ (lie, deceit) /kisim/ /kisim/ (cut, style, manner, fashion) /makṭab/ /mɔkṭɔb/ (school, library, bookstore) /makr/ /mɔkɔr/ (fraud, trick, plot) /kafan/ /kāphɔn/ (shroud) /mālik/ /mālik/ (king, owner)

4.22 Arabic ل /l/ Arabic /l/, a lateral, is realized as Bengali /l/ in all positions.

/lihāf/ /lep/ (cover, blanket, bedcover) /lāl/ /lāl/ (ruby, garnet) /lifāfah/ /lephāphā/ (covering, cover, envelop) /majlis/ /mojliš/ (session) /ğilāf/ /gilāph/ (wrap, wrapper, case, box) /halāl/ /hālāl/ (allowed, permissible) /lahlaqa/ /lɔk lɔk/ (to loll one’s tongue with thirst)

4.23 Arabic م /m/ Arabic /m/, a voiced bilabial nasal, is realized as Bengali voiced bilabial nasal /m/ in all positions.

/mālik/ /mālik/ (king, owner) /māl/ /māl/ (wealth) /hammām/ /hāmmām/ (bath) /mađlum/ /mojlum/ (oppress)


/makṭab/ /mɔkṭɔb/ (school with Arabic as medium of instruction) /mizāj/ /mijāj/ (temper, mood, frame of mind) /mum/ /mom/ (wax)

4.24 Arabic ن /n/ Arabic /n/, a voiced alveolar nasal, is realized as Bengali voiced alveolar nasal /n/ in all positions.

/naẓar/ /nɔjor/ (look, glance, view) /nafs/ /nɔphs/ (self, soul) /inṭeqāl/ /enṭekāl/ (to be transferred, to die) /ḍīn/ /ḍīn/ (religion) /ḍinār/ /ḍinār/ (money unit) /aḍān/ /ājān/~/āzān/ (call for prayers) /nūr/ /nūr/ (light)

4.25 Arabic ه /h/ /h/, a voiceless laryngeal fricative, as well as Arabic / ḥ/ are realized as Bengali /h/, a voiced glottal fricative, in all positions. In final positions, however, Arabic /h/ is not produced, so in borrowed words it leaves the preceding vowel long.

/haḍiya/ /hāḍiyā/~/hāḍi/ (gift) /hābīl/ /hābīl/ (Abel) /hijrā/ /hijraṭ/ (departure, exit) /muhājir/ /muhājir/ (emigrant) /huḍhuḍ/ /huḍhuḍ/ (Hoopoe bird) /hāḍī/ /hāḍi/ (a guide, one who gives directions) /hilāl/ /helāl/ (new moon) /hā hā / /hā hā/ (to burst into laughter) /zamānah/ /zāmānā/~/jāmānā/ (period of time)

4.26 Arabic و /w/ Arabic /w/, a semi-vowel, as a consonant is realized as Bengali /w/, except when the second consonant is followed by a long vowel. In such cases, Arabic /w/ is realized as a vowel which follows rules of Bengali vowel harmony.

/wājib/ /wājeb/ (duty, obligation) /wazir/ /ujir/ ~ /uzir/ (minister of state) /wuṣūl/ /ušūl/ (arrival, attainment, achievement) /waḍa/ /wāḍā/ (promise) /ḍāṭ/ /ḍowāṭ/ (inkpot) /ḍāi/ /ḍāāi/ (medicine) /wafāṭ/ /ophāṭ/ (death) /wazn/ /ojon/ (weight) /wasīla/ /usīlā/ (means, medium) /wuđu / /oju/ (purity, cleanliness)

142 Afia Dil

/wakīl/ /ukīl/ (lawyer) /ṭawfīq/ /ṭouphīk/ (conformation, adaptation)

4.27 Arabic ي /y/ Arabic /y/, semi-vowel, is realized as the Bengali semi-vowel /y/ if it is followed by a long vowel or an /e/ in the original word. If not, it is realized as the Bengali vowel /i/ or /e/.

/yā/ /yā/ (vocative particle) /yāsmīn/ /yāsmīn / (female name) /yāqūṭ/ /yākuṭ/ (precious stone) /yaqīn/ /ekīn/ (to be sure, certain)

4.28 Arabic / ء / ء Arabic / ء/ [Hamza] is a glottal stop and it can be heard in the beginning, the middle, and the end of a word. But because Bengali does not have any glottal stop, Bengalees tend not to hear the sound and in borrowed words, they realize it as the accompanying vowel, that is, if the accompanying vowel is /u/ the hamza is realized as /u/, if the accompanying vowel is /a/ it is realized as /a/, and if it is /i/ it is realized as /i/.

/su ء āl/ / suāl/ (question) ustāḍ/ /ustāḍ/ (professor) /ء insān/ /insān / (man, human being) /ء awwal/ / āwwāl/ (first, foremost, chief, best) /ء/i ء lān/ /elān/ (announcement)

5. Consonants of Classical Arabic The twenty-eight characters of the Arabic Alphabet all represent consonant sounds. Vowel sounds are represented by some vowel signs. 5.1 Consonant Clustering The rule that the first consonant of a morpheme in initial position should always be followed by a vowel excludes the occurrence of initial clusters in Classical Arabic and it has final clusters only in the pausal form. As Bengali does not have initial or final clusters, there is no problem for Bengalees in this case. But when the final cluster of Arabic is used in loanwords, generally the cluster is broken by the insertion of vowels or by the dropping of one of the consonants. For example:

/qalb/ /kɔlɔb/ (heart) /đulm/ /julum/ (injustice) /hajj/ /hɔj/ (pilgrimage)


6. Morphology Arabic loanwords have not caused any marked morphological changes in Bengali, maybe because the two languages belong to two different language families – Arabic being a Semitic language and Bengali an Indo-European. The grammatical process of changing words in Arabic is the changing of vowels and addition of consonants rather than adding suffixes and prefixes which are the processes that Bengali uses.

Most of the Arabic borrowings in Bengali are substantives. In the area of names, the Arabic feminine ending {-a}, which is a form of the feminine ending {-aṭun}, is maintained. Thus while one of the regular Bengali feminine ending is {-i}, Muslims in their feminine proper names use the ending {-a} for femininity. For example, their use of masculine and the corresponding feminine names are:

Masculine Feminine

shorif shorifa habib habiba shahan shahana rohim rohima

But though the suffix {-a} is maintained and used as a feminine sign in the names, it is not extended to any other words of Bengali origin to signal femininity. Moreover, the actual Arabic ending {-aṭ}, {- aṭun} as a feminine symbol is not used at all. The other Arabic ending that is used more extensively is the Arabic nisba ending {-iyyaṭun}, as only {-i}. Thus from Arabic comes Arbi, from Persia comes Persi, from Turkish comes Turki, and so on. This has extensive use in Bengali, for example, deš (country) deši~diši belonging to the country), and, begun (brinjal) beguni (the color of a brinjal). Arabic substantives followed by the neutral verbs /kɔrā/ “do”, or /hɔoā/ “be”, or /rākhā/ “keep” make verbs. For example:

/ğusl/ /gosol kɔrā/ (to wash) /qirāṭ/ /kirāṭ pɔrā/ (to read) /hajj/ /hɔj kɔrā/ (to go on a pilgrimage) /wuđu/ /oju kɔrā/ (to do ablution) /ğolīz/ /golīs hɔoā/ (to become dirty)

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Labial Inter- dental

Dental Alveolar Alveo- Palatal

Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Laryngeal

Stop vl. vd.

b t

d ŧ đ

j

k

q

’

ء

Fricative vl. vd.

f th d h

s z

š

s k z ğ

h

h

Trill r Lateral l Nasal m n Semi-vowel

w y

7. Some Semantic Domains of Borrowed Arabic Words The popular opinion about the borrowed words from Arabic in Bengali places them mostly in the domain of religion, law and administration. But, in reality, that is not the case. The borrowings are deep and wide, and cover much larger domains than just religion, law and administration. In fact, as shown by Dil,52 in the ordinary everyday affairs of life, Muslim Bengalees use Arabic words in abundance. It appears that Arabic has been extensively borrowed by the Muslims in the domains of names, greetings and politeness formulas, wishes and invocations, and many social activities. It must be noted also that many references to time, measures and weights are in Arabic.

7.1 Names and Nicknames A large number of Arabic loanwords have been accepted by the Bengali Muslims in the area of personal names. Every Bengali Muslim, male or female, has a personal name of either Arabic or Persian origin. Even though the boys and girls may have nicknames given to them which are used to address them in their everyday communication, the Muslim names given to them on the 5th day of their birth are always regarded as the /āšol nām/ (real name). Muslims all over Bengal believe that on the Day of Judgment, when everyone will be called to give an account of themselves, they will be called by their ‘real names’. In important legal documents, for example, the certificates of birth or death, marriage registrations, etc., the real names are used.53

Anyone who hears the 52 Dil, Afia, The Hindu and Muslim Dialects of Bengali. 53 For a detailed study of the Personal names and nicknames of Bengali Muslims, see

Dil, 1991, pp. 114-17.


name of a Bengalee will be able to identify him/her as either a Muslim or Hindu. The most important Arabic name used for a Muslim boy is Muhammad – the name of the Prophet. Ahmad is another one of the Prophet’s names that is also quite popular. In Bangladesh, Muhammad can form the part of a boy’s name initially, medially or finally. But unlike in some parts of the world where boys can be called Muhammad, among the Bengalees, no boy will be addressed only as Muhammad. This is considered disrespectful to the Prophet.

Other Arabic names also of Islamic origin, comprise the ninetynine names of God (e.g., Rahman, Raheem, Lateef), and the names of other prophets mentioned in the Qur’an (Ibrahim, Musa, Yusuf), names of the first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Osman, Ali), companions of the Prophet (Bilal, Khalid), names of holy days, holy months, holy festivals are also used. For example, babies born during Ramadan (Ramzan), the month of fasting, may be called /rɔmjan ali/ or /rɔmjan mia/; boys born on Juma (Friday), the holy day of the week, may be called /jummɔn ali/ or variations of it, persons born on the festival days may be named /iḍi mia/ or /iḍi bibi/.

It appears that nicknames are generally made out of the “real names” through some well-regulated principles followed by everybody. For example:

Real Name Nickname

Shamsul Islam Shamu Nurul Islam Nuru Hasan Alam Hashu

After the creation of Bangladesh, it appears that Bengali Muslims have started giving Bengali names to their children. But they are only nicknames. Their real names are still of Arabic or Persian origin. For example, the present researcher asked the name of a Bangladeshi boy and he gave his nickname as “Rumni” and when asked what his real name was, he said it was “Abdur Rahman” – a real Arabic name.

7.2 Greetings and Politeness Formulas Greetings and politeness formulas are important parts of the linguistic behavior of a people. Hindus and Muslims of Bengal show striking difference in their usage. It is remarkable that though the two communities have lived side by side for about twelve centuries, they have not been able to evolve a common greeting formula.

146 Afia Dil

For greetings, Muslims all over the world use the standard Arabic initiator formula /’ās sālāmu ’ālāikum/ (peace be upon you) and the expected greeting in return is the formula /wā’ālāikumus sālām/ (peace be upon you too). The variants of the greeting are /sālām/ or /selām/ which is one of the uses of the intitial /s/ by the Muslims even though Bengali does not have any initial /s/. Other greetings used by Muslims are /īd mubārɔk/ used generally during the days preceding the /’id/ which are Muslim religious festivals. As a leave-taking formula Muslims also use the Arabic phrase /fī āmānillā/ (may you be in the protection of Allah). For goodbye the Bengali formula used is /khuḍā hāfez/ or /Allāh hāfez/ (may God be your savior).

To express happiness over anything for oneself or for other people, Muslims invariably use the Arabic formula /’ḍulilla/ (praise be to God). If one has occasion to praise somebody for something one says /māšāllā / (with the grace of God).

A Muslim is required to say Bismillah (In the name of God) for everything that he/she is going to say or do, so much so that it becomes a second nature with him/her. When a Muslim hears good news he says Alhamdulillah (Praise be to God). In many cases this becomes a reply to the enquiry “How are you?” with the implication that “I am fine, thanks be to God”. When he sneezes he says alhamdulillah, when he sees something beautiful or extra special he says subhanallah (Glory be to God), and when he is ashamed of something he says astagfirullah (May God forgive). In more sophisticated families when children take leave from friends or parents they leave with fiamanillah (May you be in the protection of God). If somebody dies, the hearer of the news recites inna lillahe wa inna ilaihe rajiun (Certainly we belong to God and certainly to Him we return). When guests are seated for dinner, a Muslim will say /bismillā korūn/ meaning (please start eating in the name of God).

While planning to do something in the future, a Muslim will invariably add /inšallah/ (If God wills). When somebody sneezes, it is polite for a Muslim to say /ālhamḍulillāh/ (praise be to God) and a more sophisticated Muslim will also say /yā ārhāmkomullāh/ (may God have mercy).

If a Bengali Muslim wants to express his disapproval of anything he himself or someone else might have done, he expresses it by saying /āsṭāgphirullā/ (may God forgive). Sometimes he might say the whole formula for emphasis /āsṭāgphirullā rābbi min kulli jāmbeo wāṭūbu ilāihe/ (may God forgive). This


does not have to be for any religious lapse, it can be anything and the expression /āsṭāgphirullā/ covers asking forgiveness of God if one has done anything wrong anywhere.

Just as a Muslim will expresses his wonder and admiration of something by saying /subhānāllā/ (God be praised for His glory) to express disgust for something he will say /nāujubillā/ (We seek protection of God).

On hearing about the death of a person a Muslim says /innā lillāhi wā innā ilāihi rājiūn/ (Certainly from God we come and certainly we return to God).

When one hears something unbelievable and unpleasant at the same time, a Muslim will say /lā hāolā wālā kuoṭāillā billā/ (There is no fear and strength except in God). This is also used in its short form /lā hāola/ (no fear).

n order to repent for something or to say that one is sorry for anything that should not have been done, it is very common for a Muslim to say /ṭaubā/ (I repent).

The Muslims refer to their elders as /murrubi/ (my benefactor) rather than the Bengali Hindu term /gurujon/. They ask for forgiveness by saying /māph korun/ (forgive me) rather than the Sanskrit term /khɔmā korun/.

/jālāṭɔn korishnā/ (Do not bother me) is often used by Muslims if they are irritated by somebody. This is also an Arabic word combination: /jālā/ (exile) and /wāŧān/ (home, motherland) making /jālāṭɔn/ (to vex somebody). It is a frequently used expression.

The Eid-ul-Fitr, the day after the month of Ramadan (fasting) and Eid-ul-Azha celebrating the sacrifice of his son by Prophet Abraham as well as the birthday of Prophet Muhammad are celebrated by every Muslim in Bengal. The Shab-e-Baraat (The Night of Illumination of the 15th of Shaban in Muslim calendar) is especially celebrated with prayers and illumination. Lailatul Qadr in the month of Ramadan is celebrated with all-night prayers. The martyrdom of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad is especially observed with great solemnity and ceremonies. Thus through a large number of sayings, use of words, prayers, customs and habits a Muslim’s mind is made to accept Arabic as his very special language and Arabic culture is looked upon as his own culture. Use of Arabic becomes to him a social symbol of prestige and sophistication. But even though a Bengali Muslim says all these and other Arabic words and phrases, his pronunciation of them differs substantially from the original Arabic, and the semantic realization also is changed in many cases.

148 Afia Dil

7.3 Wishes and Invocations Wishes and invocations expressed by a people are definite indicators of their aspirations. In Bengali culture, if anybody goes to see a newborn child (going to visit a newborn child is a social “must”) or if a child is presented to an elderly person, the latter will always say a little prayer.

How do the Muslims pray for their children? What do they invoke? What do they ask their children to be like? Muslims do not invoke the prophets or tell their children to be like any of them. The most common wish for them is that they maintain their faith: /Allah ṭomār īmān thik rākhūn/ (May God keep your faith right).

For more emphasis, Muslims use Arabic terms rather than Bengali terms. For example, the Bengali term for a stupid person is /bokā/ but the stronger term used by the Muslims is /āhɔmmɔk/ for the Arabic (/ahmaq/). A person who flatters others to gain his way up is called a /khɔer khā/, a combination of Arabic and Persian. For a man of dirty nature and habits the word /khɔbiš/ for Arabic /ǩabiṯh/ is used; a lazy man is /kāhil/, a nonbeliever is a /kāfer/, a noisy child is reprimanded as Arabic /ḍɔjjāl/ or its Bengali variation /ḍɔrjāl/; a cheat is a /fɔkkɔr/; a flatterer is Bengali /mošāheb/ for Arabic /musāhib/; and an evil person is a /šaytān/ for Arabic /šayŧān/; an educationally brilliant and good conversationalist boy is a /fājil/ for Arabic /fāđil/. Ordinary sorrow is referred to as /dukkho/ but a very heavy sorrow and grief is /gɔm/ for Arabic /ğam/. An ordinary fault of a person is /doš/, but a serious shortcoming is /ṭi/ or /gɔlɔd/ for Arabic /ğalaţ/; anger is /rāg/ in Bengali but /goššā/ for Arabic /ğuṣṣa/ has a strong connotation; strength is /šokṭi/ or /jor/, but /ṭāqaṭ/ (Arabic /ŧāqaṭ) is more intense. A big thing is /bɔṛo/ but a huge one is /ālišān/, which is a combination of two Arabic words /’āli/ and /šān/. A devout Muslim is called a /musulli/. If he is learned in religious matters he is an /ālem/ or a /māolānā/.

In other words, to call a person “good” or to praise a person for his good deeds or good manners a Bengali Muslim generally uses Arabic terms. To call a person “bad” also he uses Arabic terms. A learned man is /ālem/ rather than /biḍḍān/; a noble man is /šorīf/ (for Arabic /šarīf/) rather than /mɔhoṭ/; a capable man is /kābil/ (for Arabic /qābil/) rather than /kājer/. The Bengali term for human nature is /šɔbhāb/, but if one wants to emphasize the ill nature of a person, it is referred to as /khāichhɔṭ/ or /khāslɔṭ/ (for Arabic /ǩaslaṭ/) or /aḍɔṭ/ for (Arabic /’āḍaṭ/); ordinary service is /šebā/ but real devoted service is


referred to as /khiḍmɔṭ/ for (Arabic /ǩiḍmaṭ/); and, a modest and polite person would refer to himself as /khaḍem/ for Arabic /ǩāḍim/ (a person who serves) to respected elders. Ordinary work is /kāj/ in Bengali but /āmɔl/ (for Arabic /’amal/) is used for continuous adherence to something; to emphasize a point he says /ālbaṭ/ (certainly) for Arabic /albaṭṭāh/. Muslims also use the Arabic vocative particle /ya/ in their speech. 7.4 Kinship Terms

In the area of kinship there is a series of Arabic terms that Muslims use. Five of the most frequently used terms are the names for the mother /āmmā/ (Arabic /umm/), the father /ābbā/ (Arabic /ābun/), the mother’s sister /khālā/ and her husband /khālū/ (Arabic /khāl/), and the husband /khɔšɔm/ for Arabic /ǩaṣam/. Besides these, many other kinship terms have Arabic words appended to them. For example, the term /āmmā/ from Arabic /umm/ is appended to terms for father’s sister, father’s brother’s wife, mother’s brother’s wife, as well as mother’s sister. An interesting fact is that the term used for husband by the Muslims is /khɔšom/, which in Arabic has the meaning of an adversary or opponent. In a recent book by Humayun Ahmad Sankhanil Karagar the author uses the Muslim kinship terms /khālā, nānā, āpā/ and the real names in his book also are Arabic though all the nicknames are Bengali in origin.

7.5 Time, Measures, and Weights

Muslims refer to time as /wākṭ/, which in Arabic is /waqṭ/. This is one of the examples where Muslims use a final consonant cluster. Final consonant clusters are not used in Colloquial Bengali. The use of /ṭārīkh/ for Arabic /ṭārīǩ/ (date) is very common in Bengali and it is used by both the communities. The year is referred to as /šon/ for Arabic /sana/ and a long period of time is referred to as /muḍḍɔṭ/ for Arabic /muḍḍaṭ/. The term used for weight is /ojon/ from Arabic /wazn/.

7.6 Food

In the area of food, there are many words that have been borrowed by the Bengalis mostly used by Bengali Muslims. A famous Muslim dish all over the world is the preparation called /hāluwā/ (Arabic /halwā/) which can be prepared from a number of ingredients like carrots, pumpkins, lentils, wheat flour, and farina. /kāliā/ from Arabic /qālia/ is also a favorite Muslim dish.

150 Afia Dil

7.7 Business

In the field of business a sizeable number of words used are of Arabic origin. For example, a surveyor is /amin/, the capital invested is /āšol/ (Arabic /aṣal/); a measurer is /kɔyāl/ (Arabic /kayyāl/); an agent is a /ḍālāl/; a meat packer and seller is /kɔšāi/ (Arabic /qaṣṣāb/); a tailor is a /khɔlifā/ (Arabic /ǩalīfah/); a memo is a /rokā/ (Arabic /ruq’ā/); people who engrave on gold and silver are known as /nakāši/ (Arabic /naqqāš/). Of these /kɔšāi/ and /khɔlifā/ are meant to refer only to Muslims workers.

7.8 Place Names

It is notable that the place names in Bengal are more Persian than Arabic. There are many villages and cities that have Persian suffixes with their names. For example, some of the very common suffixes used for the names of cities and villages are {-bad}, {-pur}, {-ganj}, e.g., najimabad, karimpur, and karimganj. But some names are Arabic in origin. The modern city Jessore is a derivation from an Arabic root. One of the meanings is a bridge. The place Jessore is full of rivers and therefore was in need of a large number of bridges for communication. But people are divided in their opinion regarding this name. According to one group the name Jessore was prevalent in pre-Arabic days. In Chittagong, however, where a large number of Arab traders settled down, there are some Arabic names that are still in use. For example, Alkaran, Sulek Bahar (sulukul bahar), Bakulia, Sarardi, etc. In the city of Dhaka, there are many names of streets and areas which are Arabic. They have been there for a long time – the Islampur Road, Nababpur Road, Mirpur Area, etc.

8. Conclusion

Arabic language is a major language of the world and is known for its rich literary heritage since the Middle Ages like Greek and Latin. It is the national language of a number of nation-states of Northern Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Middle East and is spoken today by over two hundred and twenty million native and non-native speakers. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It was in the 7th century that it became the language of the Qur’an and it was taken to many parts of the world by the Arab conquerors of a vast Muslim Empire. Today it is the religious language of over one billion Muslim men, women and children around the world. It is the liturgical language of nearly sixty Muslim nation-states of the world. The original Qur’anic texts are recited every day by the Muslims in Arabic in daily prayers and Arabic alphabet


is used for reading the Qur’an. In a number of languages of these countries Arabic alphabet has been adopted with some modifications. As a result it has exercised tremendous influence on the languages and cultures of several countries as remote as Indonesia, Indo-China. It has greatly influenced multinational languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Persian. For example, more than thirty percent of the Persian language vocabulary is of Arabic origin. (Chejne, 1969: 4) A number of words in European languages are of Arabic origin, for example, such common words in English as admiral, alcohol, alkali, algebra, aresenal, cipher, coffee, lemon, rice, sugar. Some languages called hybrid languages have been the result of such mixtures, for example, Maltese, the language of Malta, which is a mixture of Arabic and Italian.

Bengali language as shown in this essay has been in direct contact with Arabic long before the advent of Islam in the region. The Chittagong bay area extending along the eastern Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) was an important center of sea routes used by Arab traders along the Arabian sea going back to the pre-Christian era. Muslim saints and later the Muslim conquerors of the region introduced Arabic as the religious language and both directly and through the Perso-Arabic literary and cultural tradition Bengali came under major influence as shown in this essay at the phonetic, phonemic, morphological, semantic and cultural levels. It is a field demanding many more research studies especially in the cultural field, for example, the very high quality of Arabic calligraphic art and architecture as shown by the two specimens on this page.

Bangladesh as an interculturally dynamic nation-state for its pioneering role in the development of “Mother Languages and Other Languages” since 2000 at the United Nations level, with a large Muslim population has given Arabic a prominent place in its educational and cultural life. In view of the very close relationship of Bangladesh with the Arabic-speaking nation-states it appears that the impact of Arabic on Bengali language will become an increasingly rewarding subject of study and research by national and international scholars.

152 Afia Dil

1. Arabic calligraphic inscription of Sultan Nusrat Shah (1522 A.D.),

Sonargaon, Dhaka. Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka. 16″x47″.

2. Arabic kalima “La ila illaha Muhammad Rasul Allah” inscription, Sitara Masjid, Armanitola, Dhaka, 18th century A.D. Armanitola, Dhaka,

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